A final time, he swallowed the hot air, like a drink of boiling water.
The streets were empty and desolate. He was alone and standing across from a large hospital on the east side of Manhattan. The purple logo of the hospital glowed high above, in the night.
For a moment, the scene was peaceful. There was a food truck stationed by the emergency room, at the bottom of the ramp. When it parked, a group of men and woman leaning against a rail jump off the wall. They did so to find something to fill the night with. The food truck provided only a thin canopy of light. It illuminated the customers that bought something to eat or to smoke.
Inside the food truck, there was a lone woman working hard and taking order. Her hands were filled with drinks, sandwiches, packs of smoke and money. She moved swiftly between one order to the next. It almost felt like a ballet. Everyone that could, came out of the hospital, the doctors, the janitors, the patients. They all visited the food truck, before it left for the night.
The moon was out. The avenue still felt warm from bathing in the heat of the day. As people from the hospital puffed on their cigarettes and ate their food, there was another story racing toward them.
The sirens of the night broke the serenity of the scene.
The pale faced man heard the sound of the ambulance coming closer. He looked at the red light glimmering off the surface of the road. The ambulance turned the corner and the siren became louder, echoing throughout the street. The headlights of the ambulance shined in his face.
The screaming truck raced toward the man with the pale face. But, Joe maintained his ground and did not move an inch. The ambulance driver honked at him to get out of the way. But, he did not move.
At the end, the ambulance sped toward him and did not slow down. However, at the last moment, the ambulance turned on a dime and headed up the ramp to the emergency room. The truck screeched to a stop and a group of doctors flew out of the glass doors to take care of the patient.
The man with the pale face wondered what happened. He dropped his cigarette and stamped it out with his shoe. Slowly, he walked toward the emergency room and stood with the rest of the crowd. Everyone stared, as the doors of the ambulance flew open.
Joe saw a girl inside. It was Amy and she was unconscious at the time that they brought her to the hospital. He watched, as they rolled Amy into the hospital.
As they took her inside, the man with the pale face felt like he knew her. But, he could not place her. He looked at her again and he felt something about her. But nothing about her seemed familiar to him.
For a moment, he wonder why he was even there. As the ambulance went silent, everyone went about their business. The crowd dispersed and Joe disappeared into the night.
Thirty-One
Marble and Stone
A rolling navy blue dome covered the sky above the cemetery. Now the sun was gone and night was almost here.
And all the marble, stone and trees in Calvary Cemetery were lost in a thick darkness, a darkness that was more smoke than fog. In the sky, no star could be seen and only the diffused moon started to glow.
A pale blue light shined on Mary's face, as she ran through the field of the dead. She leaped over the graves and ducked under the low hanging branches. She moved instinctually, as if she did not have to see what was in front of her. Something outside of her, keep her from tripping and falling on the ground.
How did she manage that?
She did it with his help. Joe protected her every step and guided her along the whole way. The night would not get her, not now.
Suddenly, the stillness of the night was broken by the voice of a boy.
"Mom!"
The boy screamed after her, then her sister.
Amy stopped for a moment to catch her breath. "Mary. Stop running. Please stop!"
"Mom!"
They screamed so loud that a flock of black birds dispersed from a tree and peppered the moon.
But, Mary paid no attention to her sister or her son. She didn't care about anything they said.
Instead, she ran and ran, until she reached the place where she thought she saw the hooded figure. At first, she saw him standing by the mausoleum made of marble and stone. When she got there, the dark hooded figure disappeared.
She stopped by a tall tombstone to catch her breath. She partly smiled because she was close to reaching him. She knew that he was in this place and she was relieved because the voices in her head was not something that she made up.
She looked at the cemetery drenched in a darkening blue. Now, she felt more than ever that she was close to finding her love. She knew it.
She stopped by the mausoleum, as the trees rattled with the wind. She looked at the ornate door and waited for a sign.
Even though, her son and sister ran after her, their voices dimmed.
Instead, she heard a different kind of noise. It was one that sounded like the snapping of branches and the clicking of wooden pins that seemed to come from above. For a moment, it was like she were enshrouded by the coming noise.
Then, she heard a growl. She looked at the top of the old marble mausoleum and saw something at the top corner of the roof. It looked like a massive of black thing covered in a black blanket. It peered over the top of the small marble building.
Suddenly, its eyes opened, which glowed with the same brightness of the moon. Its pupils were like daggers pointing down.
"My god. Is that you Joe?" She gasped and her heart dropped. However, his hood partly revealed his skin that resembled charcoal, more than anything else. Mary stepped away with fright at the dark figure.
The creature moved like an insect. It crawled over the top of the mausoleum and jumped over to the large angelic statue. The creatures eyes glowed with red light and moved over the marble stone, like a roach crawling on a wall. It was strange and revolting at the same time. The creature was large, about the size of a man. It moved around the statue, stalking at her from time to time, as if it were making sure that she was still there.
"Mom."
Mary looked behind her and saw her son standing on a swath of moonlight. Her sister ran by the boy's side.
Mary stared at her boy and tried to recognize who him. But, his name never came to her. Instead, he remained the boy without a name and she hardly cared.
Mary looked at her sister and didn't even recognize her. Slowly, but surely, Joe took away everything that she had. He drained all the love from her, once again.
Mary looked at the other women who were several yards behind her sister and her son. The two women were huddled together keeping their distance.
Why? Why would they be scared to come closer? She thought.
"He's right here. He's here." She told them, knowing that they would never hear her.
This has to him, she said to herself. And she started to laugh and laugh.
Mary fell his cold hand slide up her her arm, over her shoulder and grip her neck. He was going to break her wind wipe and take her away. But he hesitated.
The fear was what he wanted.
She felt that he was conflicted. As long as the light of day is out I am a little of who I used to be. And I do love you Mary for now we are souls on the opposite side of existence.
He made her forget about her son. He showed her what others had done for him. For he was a rascal indeed.
Thirty-Two
There Was Something That I Remembered
The ambulance took Amy to New York University hospital in Manhattan on the east side of the island.
Amy was in a room on the tenth floor of the hospital. Amy was lucky, the police found her a day after she went missing. You could say that they stumbled upon her, by shear accident. How she was found, was a rumor that circulated throughout the entire hospital.
She was unconscious.
She quietly slept in her hospital bed. She dreamed of nothing and she even looked peaceful. She stayed like that for a couple of hours.
As soon as her family members found out that
she had been found, they flew to her side.
When she woke up, she found her family a
rounded the bed of the hospital. All of the women leaned toward her to hear what happened to her the night before.
Amy opened her eyes and felt overwhelmed and scared at the sight of them.
"It's okay dear," said her cousin from Michigan. Amy started to recognize their faces. Everyone was there, even family from Chicago.However, there was only one face that she did not she. She looked around at everyone and did see her sister.
Amy sat up and said, "Mary!"
"Don't worry dear."
"Mary."
"Here she comes. Don't worry here she comes."
Her dark brown eyes widened, as she saw Mary emerge from the crowd. She wore a red dress that flowed lovely against her body. For a moment, they held each as tight as they could. They sat on a hospital bed and looked into each other's eyes.
They stayed in silence, until Amy spoke, "I don't remember anything."
"Don't worry about that now. You're safe. That's all that matters."
"I was..."
"No. Don't. You don't have to say anything else. Just hug your sister. She's here for you."
"But, I need to know, something."
Mary brushed the back of her hair with her fingers. "What is it Amy? Tell me, if it will make you feel better."
She turned to her sister and said with a big smile. Mary smiled back and felt relieved.
"I met this guy." Amy told her.
"I know."
"You know?"
"Yeah. He's here."
Amy looked at the crowd that dispersed around her. By a picture hanging on a wall, Nick remained.
"Hey I was worried about you." He told Amy. "I was scared out of my mind."
Amy looked at him and smiled even more. She knew that she loved Nick forever. She looked at him, without saying much. Her tear-filled eyes said it for her. She was happy that she found a good man to settle with.
Mary made her way through the set of doctors.
"Amy! Amy."
Mary comforted her head.
"It's okay baby. It's okay."
A couple seconds later, Aubry's eyes opened.
"Just rest. Just."
"No. What happened? I need to know."
"The police found you lying in the middle of the street. That's all that I know."
"But...What happened?"
"I don't know. You tell me."
"I went to your apartment and I.."
"What?"
"I wanted to tell you about Nick."
"I know baby. I know."
I was waiting by the door of your lobby. That's all that I remember. I am not even sure, if I rang your apartment or not."
"It's okay.
She didn't know anything about him. But, that moment on she never felt good about him. Stands there smiling.
Tell us what do you remember.
There's nothing there. I was standing at the door and looking at the glass and I saw..."
"Tell us. What do you remember?"
"I remember...I remember..."
Even the memory of a faint shadowed disappeared. There was no trace of the man that she took a stroll with.
Then, she blinked and a horrendous imaged appeared before her. The flapping of bats surrounded her and she felt suffocated.
"Someone get a doctor!" Mary screamed and Nick flew down the hall to find someone.
Amy's body began to convulse and her eyes rolled up in her skull. To Mary was pulled away by a team of doctors. They all converged on her and tried to keep her from swallowing her own tongue. Two doctors grabbed on to her hand and legs.
Another doctor was about to inject a needle into her, when she quit shaking. She just laid there like a dead fish.
Thirty-Three
Abandoned & Broken
The white marble of the Silverstein Mausoleum glowed with the light of the moon and there was a haze of violet in the sky. The night was coming.
All of the cemetery looked still, but it was not. There were voices wrestling with the wind and words mixed with the fluttering leaves. They were the kind of whispers that a dead man walking in the cemetery would have heard.
Mary whispered into the night with the moon glistening off her sweaty face. The night was closer than ever.
"Why?" Asked Mary.
"Oh my Farrow. Oh my love," said the dark figure, hanging in the doorway of the mausoleum. It was him and he finally appeared out of thin air.
It was Joe.
He hung by the door. His black fingers crawled over the marble threshold, as he stuck his neck out. He slowly turned and twisted it. Any way he wanted He looked grotesque and inhuman.
The creature looked at Mary standing there, not too far away. If Joe wanted too, he could have snatch her up with his claws at anytime. He could have done anything he god damn pleased to her. But, he wasn't going to treat her like that, not like the others and not anymore.
"Oh my Farrow. Oh my love."
His words felt heavy like a magnet pulling her closer to him. No matter what she did, she could not resist. Then, everything outside of Joe and her disappeared.
And it was just them.
For a moment, it felt like the old days, when they hung around together for weeks at a time, without break. For a moment, everything fell away and only they existed in their own world.
Mary was his, regardless of what Joe looked like. She belonged to him forever, now more than ever. Any normal person would have been taken back by Joe's appearance, even frightened. But he easily took care of that and she did not notice a thing. Instead she saw Joe, exactly how she remembered him.
Joe's brown glasses sat upon his pale face and she smiled.
"Forget them," Joe said.
"And what should I look at then. If you won't let me really see all of you.
"Look over there," he pointed.
Mary glanced back at her family for the last time. They were running toward her. But, Mary knew that they would never make it.
Instead, she turned away and gazed at the wooden house sitting on the field surrounded by tombstones and accompanied by a tiny tool shed, not too far away.
"You can make." Joe told her.
It was the old caretaker's house, broken and abandoned. It looked empty. But nothing was how it really appeared, not anymore.
"Why should I leave you. I just found you."
"Forget why. You can make it. You can run for that house before the night comes. I'm sure of it. But, you have to go now."
"What about you?" She asked. "Aren't you coming with me?"
"I can't. Not now." He pointed at the night sky. "belong to them, as you belong to me."
"But why..."
"There we go again. Forget why and run," he said.
His long black fingers snapped in the direction of the house that sat of the field. The purple sky was turning black before her eyes.
"Run!" He growled at her.
And she did.
In that moment, Mary threw everything she knew away. She threw herself into the dark and started sprinting toward the house, as fast as she could. Her feet were bare and her stockings were ripped.
"I can make." She thought as her heart pounded inside her chest.
She ran through the field of the dead and she smiled to be free, happy to be leaving everyone behind.
And into the night she went.
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