Hold the Light

by Ryan Sherwood

  It only slowed him. He only briefly winced.

  I sulked in dismay. I imagined what carnage he would reap and how many more people would die if he took the gift back.

  He is taking it back! Do something!

  But I was left too weak to react and my window of opportunity was almost closed. The gift had one last tight grip latched onto my throat. It was holding on so tightly, desperately trying to avoid returning to the convict, crying out so loud I could hear its protests. The light screamed like a child being dragged away from its mother, tears gurgling in throat, holding onto me with one last bit of strength.

  That's when I reacted. I don't know how, but my bloodied right arm moved.

  My twitching fingers cupped a loose grip around the butcher knife's handle that was still nestled in my palm. I jerked the back of my hand at the convict's neck and jabbed the blade awkwardly in. It sank easily into his soft rotten flesh. He wailed into my mouth and lost his breath. Turning his head to continue the shriek, he stopped extracting the gift and let my nose loose. The reek of everything unholy flooded into my nostrils. I instinctively grabbed his coat with my other hand, frightened to fall all the way to the ground, and I hung off him, grinding the back of my hand and his whole blade into his neck. The convict arched back, clasping both his hands around his own knife sunk deep into my hand. He reeled me around in sharp jerks and I went with. Blood gushed out from my hand while he pried at the knife, thrashing all about to yank it out. But I wouldn't budge. Some energy helped me keep my hand pressed at his neck while I flopped around like a fish out of water.

  The sword found its way out of my side with his thrashing, but stayed firmly lodged in his belly. My strength vacated and I couldn't hold on any longer. The cleaver slid out of his neck and I crashed to the floor with it still dug deep into my palm, my blood draining quicker than it could march back.

  My heart was racing. The clamp of the gift grew tight around my throat and chest; quickly reclaiming its territory. Energy flowed back into me as I rose to my feet and ripped the knife out from my right hand. No pain responded. Must be in shock.

  The convict held his neck with his right hand; blood oozing from between his fingers, while his other hand was on the handle of the sword still lodged in his side.

  "Come on, you bastard," I sneered.

  The convict tugged at the sword. Amber gasped from behind me.

  Sirens wailed from just outside the broken window, stories below at street level. The police were coming and he would run again.

  "Nowhere to run now," I yelled.

  The convict grimaced; knowing this was another failed attempt to regain what he believed was his life. But a strange smirk dug into the corner of his mouth as the cops banged on the door.

  "Open up, open up," they barked. Amber ran to unlock the door.

  Two officers burst in, guns drawn on the two of us as the convict and I stood glaring at each other with palpable hate.

  "Freeze!" the police yelled in unison, one pushing Amber aside.

  "What's that smell?" a cop asked.

  The convict turned to them and took a step.

  "Stop or I'll shoot!"

  The convict leapt at them.

  "I said freeze you fucker!" the other officer yelled.

  Their guns blasted off round after round into the convict, blasting more holes in his dead body and tearing away black rank cloth from his back as the bullets exited. I dove to the floor. Amber fell to her knees screaming in dread.

  With his right hand still clutching his neck, the convict ripped the sword free from his flesh with his left hand, and wielded it through the air. The two cops continued to fire, bewildered at the amount of bullets the convict absorbed without stopping.

  The convict landed before them with a smile. He raised the sword and chopped into the neck of one, beheading him, spun, and sliced into the other, cleaving into his shoulder and through his spine. Both uniformed men fell to the floor on top of each other.

  Almost immediately, I went into convulsions and stammered into ethereal form to take their souls. The convict slashed his way down the hallway and into the street, killing anyone that got in his way to delay me with a multitude of souls to tend to. I was too occupied to follow him.

  After retrieving nearly a dozen souls in not even thirty seconds of work, the convict was long gone. I looked over at Amber and she ran over and scooped me into a hug.

  "What the hell was that?" she cried and pulled back from me, "you had a seizure and I swear I saw a blue light shoot out of your mouth. And what's with the big guy?"

  "Are you alright, Amber?"

  "No, dammit! What the hell was that? Who the hell was that guy?"

  All my strength drained again and I crashed into her arms. All of my limbs ached with tenderness. She backed away with her hand to her mouth and I fell to my knees, out of her embrace. My skin tingled as my blood beaded up and rolled towards me. It soaked up from the carpet, poured down my face and jumped into a march to come back into my wounds. Amber watched as the gash in my hand assimilated my blood back and slowly began to heal itself. She watched in awe.

  "Come on Amber, I have a lot to tell you, but we have to leave. Now."

  Chapter 63

  We did the only thing I knew to do. We ran. We spent as much time as possible away from both our places. I completely forgot about work and Amber had enough money for us to live off of. I already had time off for Jessica's funeral, but I never gave my job another thought.

  Staying at different motels each night, we hopped about the city, trying to keep from staying anywhere for long. I had to keep moving, it seemed the convict could find me easier than before - but he didn't need to find me when he was always close behind.

  My paranoia ran rampant and always lead my eyes over my shoulder. I thought I saw him everywhere. I paid for our expenses when I could, but Amber paid most of the time in cash, after we hit an ATM. We knew the police would be after us since we left were two dead officers in her apartment so we kept our credit cards in our wallets. We'd sign a different name at each hotel, keeping away from security cameras as best we could. At each place we stayed, I'd make sure to tighten every lock and barricade as much as I could, leaving only one window open a crack to keep a constant lookout.

  Most of my time was spent spying through the dusty curtains. My sister would fiddle with the ancient television and I'd join her occasionally, but I never let down my guard. The convict always attacked when I wasn't prepared so I would just have to be constant. But a week was all it took to grow intolerably weary of living in unremitting fear. My endless vigils at the windowpane were turning me into an untrusting mess. I obsessed over the substantial advantage the convict had over me, imagining dozens of scenarios in which I always had the high ground, and in the end, he would win every time. Or escape and we would have to be on the move again. Not a single set of circumstances left me with the slightest idea about what to do but sit and be frightened of him lurking around every corner.

  Amber would often sit and watch me convulse, studying what I had become. It took some time, but she grew accustomed to the gift and its hold over me. She'd fidget with her long chocolate hair as she listened to all the stories I spilled to pass the time. I told her all about Randy's and Jessica's life and death. I opened up about the fears and feelings I had harbored for so long about our family. But I could still see my father in her. They both had a hard and unbending stubbornness.

  "Why couldn't we have just surrendered to the cops?" Amber asked. "They would have figured out the convict killed everyone and that we are innocent. And we'd be in their protection."

  "How would I describe him? A huge dead guy? No way. And I wouldn't be free. We'd be forced by everyone involved to be where they told us to be. They'd all ask too many questions that I didn't have answers to. And, the second we were separated, the convict would pounce on one of us. No, we're sticking together. It's safer."

  "Well maybe they'd be able to catch and detain him. Then he'
d be locked away."

  "I thought about that, and it might work. Except that we can sense each other and he'd always know where I am. I know he'd find a way to me as long as I have the gift. He escaped death; he could escape prison. This has to end with me."

  "Then let's end it. We have to find a way to beat him George."

  "Well, I'm all ears," I spat, staring out the front window into the parking lot. At each crumbling old motel, we managed to avoid him. And we'd continue until I concocted a plan that would end him. I'd sit in every hotel room in every state, from sun up to sun down, until I found an idea if I had to.

  This room was dark and dusty. Dust particles floated in the illuminated air and twinkled down to the bed.

  "We have to stop this. We have to go to the cops."

  "What don't you understand? He is waiting, I know it."

  "I can't watch this any longer," her hair flopped about her face as she stood up and turned off the television.

  I hadn't notice how grown up my sister had become. Her auburn eyes and hair shone with a wonderful radiance that must've mimicked our mother, but I couldn't remember anything about her that was radiant. Something else caught my attention about Amber though, something extra that was familiar that I couldn't place. Maybe she reminded me of the sister I could've had instead of this woman who was cold and tired of running for her life.

  "What can we do?" she asked.

  "I don't know. Every time I face him, I lose,"

  "Well, he doesn't seem to be healing much from all the wounds you've given him," Amber said.

  "That's because he's dead," I quipped, "but you're right. He's not healing at all."

  "What can we do to trick him? Or even trap him?" she probed.

  "He wants the gift so he can get his wife back. The hatred he feels for me is based on that. He thinks I am holding him back, pushing him further away from her. I don't think we can change his mind."

  "Come on," Amber said as she got her coat, "we need food and fresh air to think. This place stinks."

  We walked out into the glowing afternoon and down the street to the convenient store. I pondered the whole time about what we could do. Carrying food back in our arms with eyes over our shoulders, we crashed on our beds, tearing into the plastic packaging of our sandwiches. After charging into half her meal, Amber looked at me.

  "Hey, try this one for size. If you know his memories maybe you could use them?"

  "How?"

  "I don't know, dive into them," she said, "explore the convict's memories that you have and find something that we can use against him."

  "I don't know how to," I answered, "I only know what Randy told me and what the gift lets me know. The memories from his life come to me at strange and random times. They come..."

  "Ah shit George, you said you've gotten impressions from it before. Maybe it can't tell you, maybe it doesn't want to, but it still lets you know things. It's trying to tell you something, dammit - just listen or ask more forcefully. Delve into the memories and go further."

  "I don't know how."

  "Meditate or something, figure it out," she pushed. "Randy must have done it, from what you said. It sounds like he knew more about the convict than he should have from only sharing a cell with him for a few days."

  "True." I whispered. "It seems the memories from Randy's and the convict's lives came to me when I'm experiencing something similar to what they went through. If they were scared, I received a memory related to when they were scared."

  The catch was whose memories would I get the convict's or Randy's? And what could I think of now that would reveal a weakness of the convict from the past? Even though it was a pedestrian plan, it was the best we had. It was time to find out the gift's potential and use it for my benefit.

  I had to get a grip on life for once and not death.

  Chapter 64

  I sat on my bed and attempted to clear my mind. All that happened was I was whisked off to take more souls. I grew frustrated and went into more convulsions. I began to count the ceiling tiles. Amber rustled about on the neat bed and the sound caught and held me in a methodical pattern. The faucet in the bathroom dripped loudly and provided another sound pattern.

  My body began to feel weightless and tingly as the light inside me stirred and hummed.

  "Is it working?" Amber asked.

  I didn't respond. I was thinking of when I attacked my father. That time, over any other in my life, had to jog the gift into action and reveal something. Nothing.

  My concentration faded. I thought of when the convict killed Randy and I caught a small glimpse of the convict slicing the neck of a woman and fire all around. But that quickly disappeared. I took a deep breath and struggled to think of the worst thing to happen to me. Jessica came to mind instantly but released vague impressions of a blurry dark hair woman Then nothing more. My thoughts spun like a roulette wheel. I aimed to land my bouncing concentration on wherever drew me. On something that destroyed me. My mind spun, hitting a multitude of incidents, and then abruptly stopped on betrayal. The room and everything in it melted away in an instant. The sound of the dripping faucet was the only remaining element of reality.

  A blue haze veiled my eyes. Drip. Slipping away into a memory, the world swirled and immersed itself into another time but the same place. The city felt the same, the bustle and the noise was recognizable but was stale with two hundred years of dust. There were cobblestone streets and stocky brick buildings that weren't lit by electricity. Horse dung scented the air faintly and the salty tang of the sea breathed out over everything.

  As blue as the world was to my eyes, I could see yellow torch flames dance brightly along the sidewalks as the nightlife bustled about in this living memory from the convict.

  A light delicate touch brushed my arm and clung to it.

  Drip, drip. She was his wife. She played with long brown hair and gazed at me with deep loving eyes. She wore a white collared dress that flowed all around her in a breeze as gentle as she moved. The cloth brushed up and tickled my forearm. She looked up and smiled. I felt the warmth of love. Every sensation was mine; I was living his memory. The world was so blue, the night sky, the buildings, the people - only certain lights shone their true colors and her, oh her, she glowed a blinding white and her eyes a capturing hazel. She could easily be chased over centuries.

  We entered a hall, some assembly hall, with dozens of mulling people all draped in fancy dress, no different than themselves. We sat in the second row after greeting friends. Crosses hung all around, candlelight draped the high walls and lit every red bow and green wreath littering the walls.

  An organ sang. This was a church. I was confused, but everyone seemed to be in place. The wooden pew creaked as I situated myself during the Father's speech; his robe was as blue as the deep sea.

  He preached about Christmas. We must have been at a midnight mass of sorts. Not a single word spoken calmed me as something plagued the convict's mind. That something stole my attention as well. It was a nagging sense of insecurity that originated from a lanky, older, blonde man that gazed enviously at the woman at my side. He was swathed a glowing violent navy flame.

  The congregation stood and the huge body of the convict walked up to the front of the church, knelt, and took communion. His wife Veronica followed gracefully, capturing all my attention, smiling at me with all her love.

  Yellow hair covered the face of the fiery sapphire-tinted man. He peered through it and coveted the raven-haired beauty at my side. A supple anger bent around my head as the massive muscles inside the convict's black long coat strained against the fabric. Drip, drip, drip.

  Walking back to our seats, I towered over everyone and sat with a moan of the pew. Church ended and we filed out into a Christmas morning, dark and new with fat snowflakes waddling down onto our faces and feet. She hugged my arm, enjoying the magical snowfall with a puerile smirk across her face. Her feet jittered as she wanted to run and play. Drip, drip, drip, drip. All the parishioners spi
lled onto the old street and spoke of all that touched their minds, needing to be out and enjoy the gorgeous Christmas morn. The tall blonde man was peaking over his shoulder, still coveting his wife. Catching my glance, he turned away to avoid my anger.

  "I love Christmas," she said up at me.

  "I love you, Veronica," his voice rumbled.

  "I love you, Mural."

  She leaned her head against my arm and sighed. It was strange to hear a human voice come from the convict. Strange to hear his name. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

  People strolled merrily along the streets, their cares abandoned in the soft snow. They smiled and hoped for the first time in ages in appeared, but that calm was quickly quelled with the distant clamor of violence.