Blood and Shadow - Pt. 1

Amy let out a guttural yell of triumph to greet the New York skyline. She didn’t recognize her own voice or where the scream had even come from, but it felt right. Standing on the roof of the old apartment building with Miguel’s blood covering her hands, she finally felt free. Forcing herself to breath would have to happen before she could tell her body to move away. She had been standing over him with the pistol in her hand. The butt of the handle was caked in her victim’s blood and still had droplets falling from it before she let it fall and make a loud clank against the roof’s uneven surface.

 She didn’t want to look at his body—his long beautiful hair now matted across his face with blood where there weren’t chunks of his skull missing, she had hit him a lot—Something drew her to look though, a stronger sense of closure perhaps. He had lowered his guard, stilled his hand, and this was what he got for it with his head cracked open and his blood pooling around his head.

Amy was about to turn away when she realized that the blood had not stopped moving around the dead man, it was still expanding outwards. With bubbling strides the thick red liquid stretched and stopped in motions unnatural to its liquid state. In a matter of moments it was all too clear. Underneath the dead leader’s body; his blood had shaped into his symbol. The familiar demonic M-shape scared her and she stumbled back falling to the roof, crying up at the stars.

“No-“

“No, no, no, no—please God no-“

***

Four years ago—at the age of twenty-four, when we know everything—Amy Cast felt that she was on top of the world. She was a tennis instructor with only four real clients; the children of old money that her parents had set her up with. She basically got to play all day and keep Harold Hemingford’s hands away from her skirt when he failed to listen to her tips for the hundredth time. She had graduated from NYU with a degree in physical education and minor in physical therapy—a set of degrees which her neurosurgeon-to-be fiancée had pointed out were useless on multiple occasions, though his father thought those were good pursuits for his sons wife to stay attractive well into her later years. Alexander Hawethorn had been handpicked for her by her parents and his parents had taken some time to approve of her from what she knew. As a gift for agreeing to marry him though she had been given a pretty sizable bank account to see the world and with Alex’ med school studies it was rare she had to see him. Amy had recently traveled to Canada, South Korea, England, and Japan just to see friends, play tennis, and see the world that interested her. Now he was about to finish school though and it was time for part two of her parents master plan. She would be given a lot of zeroes on a rectangular piece of paper for a wedding present and one double the size if they could work together and produce a male grandson, a task her own parents had failed at miserably.

So life had a lot of potential for Amy if she’d play along like all of the other good little spoiled girls who wanted the dream life. Her parents didn’t marry for love, why should she? She may be a bit too modest to say it out loud but Amy knew that she had inherited and surpassed her mother’s beauty and her father’s ability to read people. She was proud of her body and the shape she was in and enjoyed showing it off when it was acceptable. Her GPA wasn’t bad either. The trouble she had with math and Spanish she had sought help with, she even still saw her Spanish tutor from time to time to make sure she didn’t lose a skill she had worked so very hard on to acquire.

For a girl who was handed everything in life it was the things that she had earned that were held closest to her heart. Amy’s mother, Deborah Doefleure Cast, pushed her daughter to be many things; the least of which being a miniature version of herself. There were the dancing lessons, the gymnastics and she especially hated when her mother wanted her to be the next big pop singer. It was the tennis lessons that finally stuck. Everything else that Amy really enjoyed she had started on her own, like the scuba diving and self-defense classes. What really upset Amy though was her mother’s focus on her looks, it was unhealthy to say the least. Amy could never wear the things she wanted to or eat what she wanted if it wasn’t a special occasion like her birthday. Deborah had even tried to convince her daughter to get plastic surgery, offering to pay for it in full. She had found her own way though, as she got older she enjoyed exercising and found a look for her that Deborah could tolerate but was still very attractive.

Okay, so maybe she didn’t have everything going for her like she wanted. Alex was an ass and his idea of a date was a wine he had bought and he would spend too long going on and on about then sex; which his idea of great sex was bragging about how good he was and all of the new techniques he’d try and medical knowledge he would put to use during. Amy found herself asking for cunnilingus a lot, just so he couldn’t talk during. His father had wanted him to be a politician—so he spoke like one—and his mother had taught him how to take any argument Amy might have a valid point on and make it seem insignificant. She had considered cheating on him as a way to end their engagement, a practice that her mother had informed her both parties in the marriage would take up later in life. Perhaps if it happened before their wedding day it would work. Maybe if she could find someone else that her parents approved of like Alex, but that she actually liked? No, that was a fool’s dream.

Temptation was certainly there though. It wasn’t a desire for an orgasm or the thrill of cheating as much as it was the absence of everything that Alex didn’t want to give her. She had spent her life around a certain type of people her entire life and now she was meeting those outside of her own circles. She had met Preston, who other than being a borderline hipster was the right kind of different she was looking for with an outlook she enjoyed hearing. It didn’t hurt that he was cute, made her laugh, and had a determination to be something no matter what he had to do to make it happen. Then there was Miguel Wren, the Spanish tutor who had mastered the knack of capturing her with his dark brown eyes and long flowing hair as well as he rolled his R’s. She had probably learned most everything that Miguel could have taught her about Spanish, at least as much as she would ever need, but she enjoyed seeing him and hearing his stories. He would often talk of his travels, his beliefs, and everything that he wanted to do before life passed him by. So she had her escapes.

Four years was a long time for people to change though. Miguel worked in the language lab when she went there and made sure that he was the one she was assigned for tutoring. She began to pay him for lessons outside of the school though, she wanted less hassle and he could use the money. Their focus was primarily on the studies, but one afternoon they had began to talk about things outside of school and that’s where it all started. He had just recently gotten back from visiting family members in Brazil where he had helped build a home for children and feed the poor. Sounded too good to be true right? He told her about some spiritual retreat he was saving up for. To say what religion Miguel followed would be a misrepresentation of him, his beliefs were taken from many cultures and some of his own desire.

There was no god or gods unless you counted the spirit and will of man. There was no sin except denying your spirit or harming the spirit of another without reason. No hell existed other than the one we create for ourselves, according to Miguel. He stayed in shape but wasn’t really a vegetarian, vegan, straight edge, or kosher. Nothing at least that she could figure out. If anything he just instructed her on how to live better and regret less and would quote philosophies from people she had never heard of. He just smiled at her and listened to her complaints about Alex and her parents.

“You have the ability to travel, to explore yourself. You should take advantage of this while you can.” He would tell her countless times. “Leave these problems of yours behind in the city, be free somewhere else.”

She liked hearing it even if she didn’t take his advice. Over the year after her graduation they met and became closer, staring into each other’s eyes. She knew the danger was building and had even let him kiss her goodbye once, which she didn’t regret. It was the rainy day in July with her hand down his pants clutching her poison that she forced herself to stop and put a bit of a distance between them. If for no other reason than not to prove her mother right before her wedding date, whenever that would be.

Preston was a little different. Preston was difficult. Amy actually has a hard time describing Preston, I can but we’ll get to him later. She however, didn’t realize that the reason she loves him so much is because he grew up in a similar world to hers but rejected it. He knows he doesn’t have a real chance with her so he’s kind of a dick. He also never realized when he would talk down to her sometimes. He didn’t like being called a hipster and pointing out how he was ‘rebelling’ against society just caused him to become defensive. It made her smile though, even if she didn’t understand why.

“I’m not going.”

“Why not Preston,” she sighed.

“Because the play is like masturbation of the arts really,” he poured his practiced line out for her to see. “This thing tonight is so Ruth and Carl can be attention whores and tell each other what great actors they are. You know they also wrote it themselves, you’ll have to hear about that a thousand times with their shit-eating grins increasing so much each time they’ll need to get them surgically removed.”

She laughed with a hand attempting to stifle it. “And this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you and Ruth used to be-“

“No, I’m not petty.”

“Just bitter that she’s started doing someone that could further her career?”

He frowned, “and what if I am?”

“Life’s too short to hold on to bitterness.”

“And what idiot told you that, pray tell?”

She shook her head and didn’t answer the question. She instead went back to their little game they would play at whichever bar Preston had picked out that night. It didn’t matter where they were, the two were best at people watching. They would try to guess about their subject’s life. Preston considered himself some-what of a reporter and had gotten pretty good—or really lucky—at guessing little things about the other patrons, especially women. He would make some bold accusation about the woman that could range from the movies she watched and art she liked to where certain piercings might be located and which sexual positions she had mastered. Then the two would argue the scientific method of figuring out how to prove whether Preston’s, or occasionally her, claims were right.

This game resulted in a lot of laughs, owed beers, offended women and Preston getting slapped at least twice that she could recall. When the two weren’t doing this they would attend art shows, poetry readings, or walk about the city looking at architecture even though both knew next to nothing about the subject, Preston pretended to. He was her other escape and she admired him for it. He was old faithful and though she felt close to him she wasn’t afraid of his desire for her. If his personality wasn’t enough to scare her away his opinions on relationships and especially marriage did the trick. Sure, there were times where they would accidently touch or maybe even hold hands. He was protective over her and made fun of the men who tried to hit on her when they were out together, these things could have meant anything though. She hadn’t been as physical with Preston as she had with Miguel.

In her mind that was probably for the best. One temptation was enough after all. Not to even mention that if she allowed herself to realize what could have been between her and Preston she would soon be forced to realize that took away the only person she was comfortable talking to. She didn’t have a lot of friends that she could trust. The girls that she called friends were mostly rich stuck up bitches like herself or artsy hipster girls like April, a relationship based off of a pure hatred for bad coffee houses. The only two of any real meaning that she had currently though were her two white knights.

Amy didn’t really need a lot more friends. She didn’t have that much to be stressed about other than the looming marriage that was still a year or two off at least. Even her grope-happy clients were no real trouble in the grand scheme of things. Yes Amy Cast felt that she was on top of the world and she thought with some good planning and being intelligent as her father wanted and beautiful as her mother demanded she could keep things that way. As an intelligent woman though she knew that some things would have to change, she couldn’t have had any clue exactly how much though. 

The Sixteen Year Club - Pt. 5

The rain was falling heavily as I drove through downtown. It was good to see that not everything had just died off, but it was probably only a matter of time. I stopped at the red light in front of Rose Hill Cemetery’s side entrance and remembered all of the times we took walks through there in high school. It was one of Brian’s favorite places to get high back when he was doing that and there was a tomb that had been opened that was embedded in the base of a hill that was nicknamed “The fuck tomb” for reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain.

I parked by the main entrance to Rose Hill Cemetery on the hill. The truck’s engine rattled slightly as I let it settle and listened to the rain, wishing I had thought to bring an umbrella. I looked up and read the name of the graveyard etched into the archway at the entrance. An old man in a grey uniform stood inside the guard tower giving people instructions on where to go. The cracked cement walkways that twisted and veined their way through the hills and sectioned off plots hadn’t been fixed since the day I first saw them. They were almost a characteristic of the place at this point. The plots were expansive and sectioned off from the old days when the cemetery was first started. There were several big hills with drop-offs that lead further down to the railroad tracks and the water.

The place was really beautiful in an eerie way. People still tried their best to take care of the grass and to keep the graves clean. There were statues of children and angels as well as large old monuments and tombs from before the civil war. Over the years it had swallowed up two smaller graveyards next to it so it was the largest in the area. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Dana’s father would be buried here, his family had lived in the area for a long time and as a vet he was entitled to be buried there amongst other great war heroes.

I finally got out of the truck. I didn’t want to be late. I stopped by the guard station as I pulled the collar of my coat around my neck as much as I could. I didn’t mind the rain but being in a suit with this kind of humidity was pretty uncomfortable. The plot was a bit away towards the back down one of the old long cement stairways. There was a newer wooden set across the way if you had come in the newer entrance but by the time I saw those I was halfway down the cracked and aging structure. I saw the grey tents that had been set up for the funeral and the chorus over black clad observers that showed me where to go. I approached slowly, not recognizing anyone at first.

I finally spotted my mom in the crowd in her black pants-suit with the grey coat and dark blue umbrella. She motioned me over being a concerned mother she wanted me to join her under the umbrella. I usually wouldn’t have but the rain looked like it wasn’t going to let up and there was almost no room left under the two tents.

“Where’s dad?”

“He said his back was bothering him,” she noted. “Or you can read between the lines and realize he didn’t like the good captain very much.”

“Who did,” I said under my breath. She cut her eyes at me to remind me we were at a funeral.

I shouldn’t have looked down at my dad for not coming. I was there for other reasons more than to honor this man. In truth I should have really disliked him. It wasn’t his fault, psychologically it was displacement. It was Brian’s fault for sneaking in, ours for encouraging him, but Captain Crowne chased him out and the fear of the old man’s swing caused him to fall. As I looked at the smooth oak coffin with the red, white, and blue flag draped over it I couldn’t help but feel a bit of anger towards the dead man in the casket welling up inside of me.

I pushed it back down inside of me and looked ahead of me. It probably helped that that particular moment was when I noticed Dana. Her brown hair was a bit shorter now but her smile was unmistakable. If anyone could be in her current mood and still be smiling at the world I wasn’t sure how. She wore a charcoal grey jacket with matching slacks. She wore a white top underneath and a silver cross her grandfather had given her. I wasn’t sure if she saw me as she turned but I saw her, and it was a good feeling. As the service began I realized I was staring and stopped, looking down.

The service continued. Pastor Bell and another preacher I had never met before spoke and spoke highly of his devotion and spirit but never his love or caring. I guess even if you aren’t loved you can be highly respected. After the ministers had finished their monologues other people began standing up to say words of remembrance about the deceased. I lost count of the litany of names that came up to each share a few words that turned into a few more. I thought it was odd that no one cried for him. It was silly to wonder but it made me think about who would cry at my funeral. Brian, he wouldn’t be there. Would the others? My mother put her hand on my shoulder and that was enough to reassure me.

Her touch was actually just to inform me that the service was over, something I hadn’t noticed on my own with all of the thinking I had been doing. People placed their flowers and let some fall onto the casket as it was lowered into the ground. The rain was starting to let up and there was the smell of fresh rain against the grass in the air. People slowly began to break off from the cluster and the crowd was slow to disperse. Dana and her extended family stayed put until most of the crowd had cleared. When things had spread out a bit I saw Pierce off to the back and David directly behind the tent. His short stature had hidden us from each other. I didn’t think anyone else from the group would show up. To be honest his parents probably bugged him into coming.

Either way I was happy to see him. I made my way around and shook the hands of those I knew. I made sure to speak to Pastor Bell, Pierce, and the few members of Dana’s family I remembered. She was still busy though so I made my way towards David. His demeanor was sour and some of it probably had to do with the fact he looked like a soaked rat after all of that rain but when he saw me though his expression brightened some.

“Hey man,” I said with a smile.

“Jason, I didn’t think you’d be here until later.”

“I came in last night, thought I would spend some time with the parents.”

He nodded. “Have you heard from the others?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed with a nod myself. “Everyone is meeting us there at six at the new building. You’re still coming right?”

“Of course, actually would you mind if I just rode there with you and you dropped me off? Otherwise I’ll have to borrow my mom’s car.”

“Oh come on David, you know I don’t mind.” That wasn’t a lie, and maybe a chance to talk to David alone first would prove fruitful. “Let me just go say goodbye to a few people and we can get out of here.”

“You mean Dana,” he corrected me.

“Yes,” I tried not to blush. Why should I be? I was good at lying to myself. “I’ll be right back.”

He nodded and turned to the conversation his and my mothers were having. I turned and looked over, satisfied Dana was free enough I could make sure that she saw me, say a few words, she would know that I was here. That was all that I wanted. I took a step forward and she saw me coming. She looked up at me as a hand brushed strands of hair away from her eyes. She smiled that sweet smile at me. Suddenly I couldn’t recall what I wanted there.

“You came,” She said softly. “I didn’t think you would.”

“Why’s that” I asked, not to be smooth mind you. I was just curious what she thought of me.

“Maine is a long way away and other than church I don’t think you really knew my grandfather or anyone else in my family that well.”

She had a point, “I had some things to do here and this seemed like a good time to go ahead with that.” That sounded good. Don’t seem desperate.

“Well I’m glad you came.”

“Me too, just wish it were under better circumstances.” This is where I stepped too far to the left. “You look great though, I’m sure you’re doing well otherwise.”

She opened her mouth to say something but someone from her family was calling her over to meet a distant long lost relative.

“I need to go, but depending on when you’re leaving we should grab lunch or something if you want to.”

“Definitely,” I smiled. Mine wasn’t as practiced as hers.

“I should go, see if I can help them. We have a lot of people who want us to stop by.” She smiled. “I think they’re wanting me to find a place to store all of the leftovers.”

“Oh I’ll bet, I understand.” I did. Southern funerals were highly food based and visiting all of the right people was a part of it too. Dana was a social butterfly, her beauty made her one whether she wanted to be or not.

“I’ll call you,” She said turning.

“My number is still the same,” I called to her as she turned and headed back to her family. She was just being polite and I was looking too deep into this. I knew that. I’m not stupid. I guess we all have to have dreams though, right?

As I pondered my something short of a real dilemma issues I walked back to my mother. I told her I’d be home late and to tell dad hey and that he didn’t need to worry about his truck. I met back up with David and he nodded to let me know that he was ready to go. We walked back up the path, thankful the rain had finally gone. We didn’t say anything to each other until we had passed the gates and were back on the hill near my truck. I noticed he was shaking his head and looked up at him as I fished for my Dad’s keys.

“Man oh man, I did not want to come here.”

“Yeah,” I said opening up my door and sliding in. David did the same. “Why did you come then?”

“Why did you?”

“Touche’ sir.”

I smirked and started up the truck. The hum of the engine filled my ears and was the only thing keeping the silence from being uncomfortable. It wasn’t hard to realize that the scared kid that I knew in David had changed. Maybe he was still scared but he wasn’t naïve anymore and he didn’t need me to comfort him in stressful situations.

“It’s been too long man,” I said sincerely as I put one hand on the wheel but not sure where to go.

“Yeah, e-mail is cool and all but I’m glad to see you in person.”

“So you graduated from Tech huh?”

He nodded, “now just to find a job. Make some money.”

“Soon you’ll be settling down and wanting to have a family, kids, big house with the white picket fence. I won’t recognize you.” I smiled, he didn’t. In fact he just shook his head.

“I guess.”

“Something not sound appealing about that to you?”

“I don’t know,” he said it with a tone in his voice that I knew there was more there but honestly I wasn’t sure what.

“What’s going on man,” I asked as I slowly backed the truck down the hill and checked behind me before getting back on Riverside dr.

He was quiet for a moment before opening his mouth to try and form his sentence two or three times before finally getting it out.

“It’s not anything big,” he paused. “I mean, it isn’t just one thing you know? I’ve finished school and now I’m not sure where to go, what to do.”

“David, you’re young,” I paused and had to reaffirm it with myself, “we’re young. We have our whole lives ahead of us and you out of anyone have the potential to do a lot of great things.”

“Do you know I was dreading coming back here?”

“Why,” I asked, not sure if I guessed his answer correctly or not.

“I feel like I have so much left to do and no time to do it in. Sure, I know we’re young but we don’t know exactly how much time we have.”

“Because of what happened with Brian,” I was right and I just needed him to say it.

“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I didn’t want to come back here because the last two years all I could think about was how important that five years might have been.” He looked flustered. “What if we weren’t going to die of old age Jason? What if you were supposed to get hit by a bus at forty-seven but now it’ll happen at forty-two, how much of your life do you have left then?”

“Man you’re worrying too much,” I said but I wondered was he worrying too much or was he worrying just the right amount. “You’ve got a lot going on for you right now David. You just graduated. You’ve got that video game you’re working on that you were telling me about.” I paused and instantly knew that was my mistake.

“Yeah and what else,” he snapped. “My video game is pretty much dead in the water. A couple of guys in their garage basically made the same game and just got it out faster so it’s shot until I can re-work it. I could get a number of jobs but what if I want something more than just a job, that’s not who I am.”

“David you won’t be just a job. You’ll do the job for a bit and then break out on your own, find someone,” he cut me off.

“Whatever, Jason I’m still a virgin.”

I’ll be honest I really didn’t know how to respond to that one. Things were much easier when we were kids and we weren’t trying to speculate when we were going to die.

“So you’re just giving up,” I heard my father’s words ring in my ear as I let them come out of my mouth. I didn’t know if this would work but nothing else was at the time.

“I, no I just,” I decided to cut him off for once.

“You’re just dwelling on it and letting it drag you down to where that is all you think about. You’ve let it put a complete pause on your life haven’t you?”

He didn’t answer but I knew I had gotten them.

“You’ve got talent, you have opportunity. You’ve got friends.”

“Yeah,” he said weakly.

“Then stop sweating how many years you have and just use each one to your advantage. Don’t let the rest of the years slip by just because you got robbed of a few. You did that for a good reason. You did that for Brian so don’t let that sacrifice go to waste.”

He just looked out the window for what seemed like a much longer time than it actually was. When he spoke I wasn’t expecting the answer he gave me.

“You’re right.” I don’t know if he saw the half surprised look in my eyes or not but he continued to stress the point. “You’re right I just…things have been tough lately and I’ve just been letting me get me you know? Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.”

“Agreed.”

We stopped by Washington Park which was a favorite spot of David’s when he was younger. Before his dad started having all of those health problems he used to take him there to play. It was good to see that they hadn’t let it go to waste. On that particular day there was a couple getting married over near the steps as about twenty-five people or so watched. I didn’t need my psychology degree to realize why seeing this right after our conversation made David smile. David would be fine, all he needed, all he ever needed, was a little bit of hope.

It was getting to be that time so we drove to Ingleside Village Pizza. We were the first ones there which wasn’t a surprise so we parked and went in to get us all a table. The new building still had the familiar Christmas lights and pop culture tributes framed along the walls with a few new and many of the old, but something was different. The building was much larger and the wood paneled walls now replaced by white concrete. The counter was further back and it just seemed, less personal. The fact that I didn’t recognize any of the staff didn’t surprise me but still the place didn’t feel the same.

We took seats at our table and ordered drinks and waited on the others. We talked about simple easy things as we sipped our cokes—movies, books, and current events—that’s what entertained us after that slightly difficult conversation in the truck. We didn’t even see Stan come in. I thought a stranger was sitting down at our table until I caught a good look at him.

“Nice beard,” David said.

“Dude, Stan,” seeing him put a bit of a shock in my voice. I almost didn’t recognize him. It wasn’t just his appearance but an air about him that seemed to weigh him down. “Man you look different, been working out?”

“Just lifting engines,” he snorted as he picked up a menu and smiled. I just then realized he was in his jumpsuit from work, just with a black jacket over the grey material. “You too look well. I recognized you as soon as I walked in.”

I felt bad for not recognizing one of my closest friends. He looked well—rugged with the full beard—and more in shape than I had ever seen him. It was hard for me to pinpoint everything that was different but other than just the age change my friend seemed, hardened.

“What are you driving now,” David asked.

Stan paused to give the waitress his drink order before turning back to David. “I got a nice deal on a 69 charger I’m fixing up in my spare time. I like driving it though.”

“Sweet, let me guess, black?”

“Yea,” Stan smiled at the attention. “What are you driving?”

“Public transportation,” David said without missing a beat. He smiled and looked over the menu again. “It’s pretty pimp though.”

Stan snorted. We all smiled. It was feeling pretty good. We had started talking about living in different places. They asked me a lot of questions about Maine. I specifically avoided mentioning my studies and was glad I had when I saw the door open and Brian slide in. Unlike Stan I recognized Brian instantly. He hadn’t changed much physically other than letting his hair grow out some. What surprised me the most was that he was still wearing that same old bomber jacket. I couldn’t believe he was still wearing it, for me it brought back a lot of hard truth and bad memories. I couldn’t imagine how he could still wear it and not feel the same. I waved him over to the table and forced a smile as he sat down. I was glad to see him but now he had made me nervous, over a jacket, it seemed silly.

Brian didn’t smile when he saw us. It almost seemed like he was there more out of obligation than desire. It took me a moment to realize that his lip was busted and he had a small cut on his right cheek, under his eyes. It looked like he had been in a fight. Maybe the sense of obligation I felt was just him being tired. He looked worn and rugged.

“Hey guys,” he said with an almost slur that furthered my idea of his tiredness.

We all greeted him in a lopsided chorus with much more cheerful grins than he had given us. He looked around at each of us. He said David and I looked different which I thought was odd but I had to remind myself that he still saw Stan and Derek on a regular basis but not us.

“Where’s Derek,” Brian asked, “late again?”

“Yep,” Stan said with a smirk.

“This something that has become a usual thing,” I questioned.

“Ever since he got his extra weight,” Brian remarked.

Stan shook his head, “he means Jessica.”

“Ah,” David and I understood collectively.

And like our mocking of his significant other had been his que that was the moment the door opened to reveal Derek in all of his late glory. Stan wasn’t the only one who had been working on some facial hair, though Derek’s looked more like it was out of laziness than an actual desire. He wore his old Metallica t-shirt. I’m not sure why that surprised me. It was faded as hell and had a hole up by the right shoulder. I until that moment had never thought of Derek as someone who lived in his past, in the glory days as it were but perhaps that was more true than I realized. We all yelled hello as he was walking over to the table, being that obnoxious group in the back of the restaurant.

“Guys,” he said as an all-purpose greeting. He took his seat and looked at each of us as if he were sizing us up or perhaps trying to remember what we used to look like.

“Jessica keep you from getting here,” I asked jokingly.

“No,” his response was deadpan before he turned and ordered his coke. I guess you had to be there for the earlier discussion to appreciate the joke.

“Well how are you guys doing,” I tried to recover.

“Good, she says hey I didn’t think you guys would want her to come and she had a hair thing to do.”

“Oh, “hair thing”, right,” Brian said as he made air quotes.

“What happened to you,” Derek asked ignoring Brian’s comment noticed the cut on his cheek and his lip. “Someone bitch slap you?”

“Yeah what happened,” I asked, way too anxious.

“Nah,” he paused. “I was playing with the neighbor’s dog. It’s big, got a little rough.”

I’m not sure if anyone else bought it but I wasn’t. Pretty sure Derek saw through it as well as he nodded, staring at Brian’s busted lip. No one else said anything else about it but the entire time we were eating I thought about asking him what really happened. We ordered our usual, two pizzas and some bread sticks. We ate, we talked. We discussed what each other would do for the future. There was the occasional “I envy you” or “You’re so lucky” exchanged for different reasons.

Derek was the only one of us who was about to be married. Stan was the only one with a stable business. Brian, the only one of us to own his own house, David had a super computer he had built himself and I was the only one that was going to go for my doctorate. If nothing else it was a good feeling to see each of us envy the other one. It seemed like old times. It felt like things were good again. My smile, as we talked and laughed, was as genuine as it could have been.

When the pizza, bread sticks, and soda were gone though it felt like that good feeling was on borrowed time. Stan got a call about a car he had to have ready by tomorrow morning, so much for being your own boss. Derek needed to get home before Jessica started complaining, so much for being the only one getting it on a regular basis. It was like part of the illusion had been shattered as we watched them both leave. We all looked at each other in silence for a moment, I myself remembering how we used to hang out until the sun rose over the new day before we would give up each other’s company.

“Guess I’ll go use the bathroom before we all split up for the night,” he said pushing his wooden chair back against the concrete floor. He vanished off behind the counter and I looked to Brian.

“So,” I said, not following it up.

“So.”

“Everything ok,” you can tell by my words that I was putting that psychology degree to good use. The truth is it’s harder to approach a problem like this correctly when you are so closely involved in it and know you’ve already screwed up in the situation before.

“I guess,” he said but I saw something in his eye that said there was more so I stayed quiet and let him finish. “Mom’s worse. Uncle Ray is coming in from Florida tomorrow to start taking care of her.”

“Brian, I’m so sorry man.”

“Yeah, can’t be helped I guess. Not like anyone can give her more life.”

There was a sting with those words and I wasn’t sure how aggressively he meant them but suddenly I was reminded of our last conversation about this at the high school. I thought of what to say to defuse the situation but he wasn’t done with what he wanted to say.

“As soon as she passes, I’m going to take off,” he told me as his fingers played with the used straw wrapper.

“Take off?”

“I’m going to go travel. I want to get out of this town.” He paused and looked away from me.”Time is running out, for me at least.” He paused before swallowing down the last of his drink as he stood, “six years. If all of that shit was real I have six more years to really live, and I can’t do that here anymore.”

“Brian, I told you I still haven’t given up.” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get his hopes up with the straws that I had been grasping at for the last few years. I could tell though, even more so than last time, that he wasn’t buying it.

“This was fun. It was good to see you Jason.” He pulled the bomber jacket around him and pulled it closed over his chest as he looked at me with a determined look. No one was going to change Brian’s mind about his future. “Maybe we’ll do it again sometime, if we have time.”

I couldn’t open my mouth or even really think I would have said other than shit he had already heard before. He didn’t look back as he hit the door and disappeared into the setting sun. The door shutting behind him seemed a little too cliché’, even for me. David returned from the bathroom a moment later though and confirmed my thoughts and feelings towards the subject.

“Should I be surprised he didn’t stick around to tell me goodbye?”

***

I drove David home not long after that. It was on my way so I didn’t mind and the conversation was good and light on the way back. We shook hands as he exited my Dad’s truck and agreed to stay in touch and do this again sometime.

“Brian says he’s going to be traveling, if something happens to his mom.”

David needed to know, he deserved to. He just nodded though when I told him, like it was a given. David was always pretty good at deducing things without a lot of information. I remember when Ashley and I broke up and had both agreed to keep it quiet as long as possible. One day and a few cokes later David had figured out why I seemed “different” as he put it.

“Elementary my dear Jason,” he told me before rattling off a list of small and almost subtle little changes in my routine that dictated the absence of a significant other. He’d have made a good detective if he wasn’t so afraid of getting punched in the face repeatedly.

After I dropped David off I turned the stereo in Dad’s truck up and attempted to drown out my thoughts with Pearl Jam. There was nowhere else to go back in my hometown, I had seen everything I had wanted to and my vacation was only for another day. So I went home. I pulled the old truck into the driveway, off to the right near the old basketball goal that only my dad ever used. I listened as the engine died down after I removed the key from the ignition. I got out and shut the door to the truck. The last rays of the sun had vanished not long after I dropped David off. The sky was still that deep purple color with the black bottom where it met the horizon.

I watched the sky for a moment before shutting the door to the truck with its creaking hinges. I walked around to the truck bed and let down the tailgate. I looked over at the rest of the empty driveway, guessing my parents had a church event or something. I opened up the toolbox of my dad’s truck and like usual there was a large Georgia Bulldog’s blanket in the far right compartment. I spread the blanket out in the truck bed and lay on it, looking up at the stars. The sky was beautiful, one of the things I missed about my home as I bathed under the spears of light the stars cast down. There was a calm at that moment that washed the day away and I didn’t want it to end.

Footsteps pulled me from that peace though. I heard rubber soles scrape against gravel up on the road just past our front yard. I shot up, admittedly a little started. I heard the footsteps again before my eyes could focus in on the shadowed silhouette of Dana approaching the truck as she cut through my yard. I think she was a bit surprised to see me there as well, at least lying in the truck bed. She paused for a moment as her arms wrapped around her. She looked cold in some odd way, even though it was far from it. Her eyes looked innocent and bright in the darkness. There was something in her face though that I couldn’t read about her. Mind you, I was good at reading people that I didn’t know so yet again in this situation I was a little lost. She didn’t let her faltering step stop her any longer though as she approached the truck forcing that soft smile that I was so vulnerable to.

“Dana,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound as awkward out loud as I thought it had.

“Hey, I called earlier about that dinner but you didn’t answer or ever call me back.”

I slid my phone from my pants pocket and saw that I had left it was on silent.

“I didn’t turn the sound back up after the funeral. I didn’t even think about it, I’m so sorry.” My words had never been more sincere. “I hope you won’t hold it against me?”

She shook her head, “no.” She smiled again and looked up at the same stars I had recently been gazing upon. “I decided to take a walk to clear my head of everything today and I figured I’d swing by your house and see if you were here or out with the guys.”

“It ended early.”

“That doesn’t seem like you guys.”

I shrugged not knowing how to answer. I couldn’t really explain in truth either. I don’t think she really cared about our hang out time to be honest either.

“So crazy day for you I’m sure.” It was kind of an understatement with the funeral and everything but she looked like there was more bothering her.

“Yeah that’s kind of—actually—I know I promised dinner but do you feel up to just taking a walk somewhere or something, to just talk?”

I nodded, secretly pleased. Dinner is nice don’t get me wrong but some time alone was something I had wanted with Dana since I was fourteen, even if I didn’t realize it.

“No, no that is fine. I know a good place if you don’t mind taking a short drive?”

She nodded and smiled. I closed the tailgate and we both got into the truck. I drove us out to a field that wasn’t too far away from my house. It was owned by some company that wouldn’t build anything on it until 2009. The field had a small man-made pond from the previous owner that looked really nice under the moonlight. I stopped the truck not too far from it and backed it up so that we could sit on the tailgate and look at the water or the stars.

“How’s this?”

“Perfect,” she said in a flat tone as she got out of the truck. Her façade was completely dropped now, she just wasn’t feeling it. Her eyes were on the sky and her face, though still in that constant happy disposition, was as flat as I’d ever seen it. She had more on her mind than I could have imagined and she would still only share a small part of it with me that night.

“Good,” I said as we stared out at the water. I stretched the Bulldogs blanket back over the bed of the truck, neater this time. We sat on the blanket and I wondered what to say, she already knew though.

“We buried my grandfather today, the man who raised me.”

What she said next shouldn’t have surprised me but it did, it was so obvious but it did.

“I was glad,” she paused and fought tears that were welling. “I moved out when it was time for college but I had to come back. I had nowhere else to go, for my whole life I’ve only had him.” She lost her fight and a small stream of tears fled into the night air across her cheek, “but I hated him. I hated him my entire life.” She made no noise with her tears as she got it all out.

I wrapped an arm around her. She slid in closer and put her head on my chest.

“He barely left me enough money to bury him with,” Dana told me. “He was a war hero but other than his reputation he really didn’t have that much. He had no living friends and nothing to leave his granddaughter other than the strict rules he enforced for so long.”

“Dana…”

“The only thing he really left me with was freedom,” she looked up at me with those beautiful eyes, “it’s time I started living for myself and really experience the world my way.”

I was going to encourage her to do it. She needed to embrace this new idea. It would help her get over her grandfather’s death and long term any damage he caused to her. I was ready to be the best encouraging friend ever and tell her to embrace the new life but she was way ahead of me. She knew what she wanted and was prepared to start doing things her way.

I was surprised when she leaned up and kissed. Her mouth open, her tongue soft and playful, she felt warm against my skin. Our arms wrapped around each other as we fell backwards in the bed of the truck, kissing. I thought this was her just getting the kiss out of her system until her fingers grabbed at my belt. She rose up as I lay underneath her. I saw her in her full beauty under the moonlight. That night we had sex in the back of my dad’s truck.

I was far from a virgin but it felt like a first time all over again. Like I had reached some long lost treasure that Dr. Jones should have been looking for. It was better than I could have imagined it. I didn’t want that moment to end, other than the fact that the singular blanket separating us from the hard metal wasn’t pleasant; other than that one thing though I had never enJessicaed the act quite so much.

After we were done Dana lay in my arms with my shirt draped over her for a few moments as she looked into my eyes. Soon though she was up and getting dressed. I was a bit slow to do so myself, still lingering on all of the positives. She didn’t look me in the eyes as she got dressed though and I had to wonder if she thought of me as a mistake, or perhaps equally as worse, she went into this knowing it was a onetime thing and was determined to not get attached. It was an awkward moment if nothing else and I decided to break the silence. I had to test the waters and see what just happened meant.

“Dana,” I whispered after buttoning my pants back up. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about that for a very long time.”

“I know,” she said handing me my shirt back after hers had been returned.

“Well, “ she wasn’t making this easy. I did the stupidest thing at that point and thought and spoke like her psychologist. “You’re not looking for a relationship right now are you, even though we both want this in some small way?”

She turned and looked at me for several long seconds. She looked down finally before kissing me again sweetly on my almost trembling lips as I waited for her response.

“I need some time to think,” not the worst answer, far from the one I wanted. We kissed one last time and she looked at me like she wanted more or to say something else but she just looked away.

“Do you mind taking me home?”

It took me a moment but I nodded. We both got in the truck and I drove out of that field feeling an attachment to it. I drove her home and walked her to the door. She told me goodnight and squeezed my hand before going in. This house now brought on a flood of mixed memories but the last one I remembered was seeing her undress in front of her window that night, and then tonight.

I didn’t see Dana my last day in town. She didn’t call me and we never went and got dinner. When I arrived back in Maine I simply got a text from her that read: “Thanks, for everything”.

---

In a dusty library on a University campus in Maine there was a corner part on the fourth floor where I spend three years of my life. There were tall windows with frosted glass that looked in on my little corner of old polished wood furniture and oversized bookshelves with rolling ladders. There were two tables that were hardly ever occupied. The one closest to the window had become mine for my time at the school and a little afterwards. Not many people used the fourth floor other than the staff. There were mostly obscure medical books and old library records. In my corner though there were four shelves that held books my nose was permanently planted in, these occult books were my hope.

On the night of December 1^st 2008 in the Coralark University library I had found an answer I had been searching to find for years. It had been storming for three days straight and that night the weather was at its worse. They were threatening to close down the library because the lights had flickered on and off a few times but I was too close to the answer. I was becoming afraid though.

For the past week or so I had felt like I was being watched. I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving break. I had too much work to do. I spent the time I could in the library. Whenever it was open I was there. I had tons of photocopies and articles from the archives. I had talked to two different professors at great length and finally I had stumbled on one book, all of my research led me to this one manuscript written by a German scientist in the early 1900’s. Ever since I found it though on that top shelf covered in dust, I’ve been feeling like someone was following me.

I didn’t tell anyone because who would believe me? I wasn’t convinced myself. It could have been my senses playing with me or just something as simple as an overreaction to the unfamiliar. It wasn’t like doors slamming and the wind banging against walls or anything like you would see in the movies. It was a feeling, seeing things out of the corners of my eyes and that cold feeling I felt when I was a kid by the creek. I know this is the part where someone will think I studied to hard or didn’t sleep enough and I had gone a little crazy, but I really think I got a little too close to death.

The book I had found told me how to do it, how to summon him. The accounts listed warned me about the dangers of doing something that stupid and some of the punishments for angering him were quite harsh, historically at least. I knew how to do it and I was studying him, learning my opponent. He liked to make deals for life, like the years we had given him. Some say he did it just to collect them as some kind of sick sadistic drive to make people’s lives shorter so he could take them to the abyss, others thinking that he was trying to buy his own life back. Maybe it was hard being Death and he wanted out, or just to be able to die and rest himself. I had spent more hours than I was willing to admit thinking about these things. Whatever the truth was though; I had a little less than three years to be prepared, to be ready to take him on to save my friend.

The friend in question had gone off the grid though. We hadn’t heard from Brian since his mother died, and trust me we had tried to find him. I got a phone call—collect of course—not too long after the funeral that he didn’t tell anyone when it was, none of us at least. The call was more of a repeat of his intentions. I’m not sure if he did it because he felt obligated to tell his best friend that he wasn’t going to be around or more-so as a subtle hint not to try to find him, either way I didn’t listen. The others seemed fine, or so I thought at the time. Derek and Stan looked for him in their own ways, mostly through other people and having people in areas they knew keep an eye out for him. David was the best help though. I’m not sure how much of it was legal and I didn’t ask but in one way or another I’d get text messages from David telling me random places he had popped up. With Georgia as his starting point in early summer I know he went up North first but two years later, through whatever means he had found at his disposal, he wound up in different parts of California with a credit card in his name and several unpaid hotel room charges. I kept having David check police records for his name, afraid that at any day now I might have to hop on a plane to bail him out somewhere. That never happened though and there was a small part of me that realized that maybe my friend didn’t need my help as much as I thought he did.

Could it be possible that all of this time spent trying to study death to save Brian might be a waste? What if Brian was supposed to die and it was actually all of those years ago that we messed up making that deal? What if the real answer to solving everything now was just to let Brian live his life and die this time? I couldn’t accept that as an answer though, I wouldn’t. Even if Brian died when the time came something had been awoken inside of me that was starting to consume me and it had become my field of study for better or worse.

On that particular night though—in my own personal corner of the old dusty building—I remember the rain being so bad that I couldn’t see out of the tall window down to the parking lot. I know that most of the other students had cleared out and the staff was just praying for the lights to falter once more so they could get out of there. I was by myself up on the fourth floor with no one in sight. With my head buried in the book, trying tirelessly to decipher some of the scripts that were still in the original German I found myself trying to keep my eyes open.

I was reading about the old Gods and how they were forced to continue on with their prescribed duties. So Death had to keep on collecting the dead and searching for death. I wasn’t sure if I could use any of this but I needed to know. As I tried to translate one of the many strange German words though I felt a chill and a cold wind like someone had left a window open on the top floor but I didn’t even know these windows could be opened.

I looked around but saw no one or no open window. I stood up to take a short break anyway and stretched my arms up high as a slight yawn escaped. My eyes shut in the ecstasy of my body’s movement, having been stiff in the chair for hours. I heard a pop though and my eyes shot open only to see more darkness. There was a flash of sparks from one of the wall lamps that caused me to jump. I’m pretty calm in stressful situations but something didn’t seem right. The darkness wrapped around me and I could barely see anything around me, even with the light coming in from the outside the constant rain smearing the windows kept everything blurry and uncertain. I pulled my cell phone out and used its light to see what was close around me.

It was soon just as useless though as the phone flickered and died and the outside lights from the parking lot seemed to fade as well. This caused the fourth floor of the library to be shrouded in almost complete darkness. I jerked to the left and the right, turning on my heel looking for what was amiss. I won’t lie, in that moment I was scared shitless. It was the dread of what might creep in the shadows—stalking me—and that unrelenting anxiety like your first time having sex. It was all just much more amplified in a violent storm of feelings. That’s why when the match was struck across the room I was lucky to not need a change of pants.

The bright flame from the small match erupted into the blackness almost blindingly. I gazed across the banister and in between the shelves to the two old fashioned chairs that were set up for students to read. A figure who wasn’t there now sat in the chair lighting a cigarette in an old fashioned elongated black holder. I froze in my place, my knees shaking. The light glowed bright and died down a bit but in that moment I saw the face of a beautiful green-eyed woman with red hair dressed in fancy professional clothes. A strange had with black lace set on her head with strands of fabric cascading down over her face as she smoked, not looking at me.

I just stood there for a moment, afraid. I had been going after Death but that wasn’t him sitting in that chair. Who was this and what had I done? I wasn’t given any answers, just a wave of her hand to summon me over. My feet still didn’t move at all though, should I? Her head cocked just slightly to the right where both of her eyes caught mine and at that moment my feet started moving without me telling them too, as if they knew they had to. I crossed at the end of the banister and ran my hand gently along it, wanting so much to grip it and still my body but I didn’t. Feeling the soft aged felt of the orange chair across from her as my hand ran over it I wasn’t sure if I should look her in the eyes or not. I sat.

She tapped her finger on the black holder to knock the ash off of the end, exposing a brighter cherry at the tip. She looked at me and for a short second I really thought I saw symbols dancing in the darkness behind her but when I tried to focus they were gone. Now that I was closer I could see that her outfit seemed to be woven out of thick dark threads and that her green eyes had a very odd criss-cross pattern to them that I couldn’t seem to get a grasp on. It hurt to stare at them too long. That wasn’t really a huge issue though, as she didn’t have much to say.

“What you’re doing isn’t right, it isn’t your path.” Her words rang in my head along with that hint of French in her accent. “Give up this foolish quest and reclaim your life.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“I was quite clear,” her voice seemed to be louder somehow but she didn’t look like she was yelling or even raising her voice really. “Your deal has done enough damage to my work already. End this now or face the consequences.”

Her hand raised and the little bit of unnaturally well lit area from just her cigarette seemed to spin and the carpets and furniture patterns meshed together over her in some type of flowing tapestry as things faded to black once more. The sound of thunder shook me and I awoke at my same table, head firmly planted in my book. The lights were on and though the storm still raged outside everything else seemed well in place. Had I fallen asleep? Was it that simple? I looked around, standing; I went to go check on the twin chairs we had set in but there was nothing unusual there. I rubbed my eyes tiredly and tried to clear the fog from my mind. That was a pretty detailed dream.

As I walked back to my chair and pondered coffee I couldn’t help but replaying the scene over again in my mind. I tried to focus on the symbols and figure out what she meant, who she was. Was this some sort of odd dream induced by my studies, or a very serious warning. A small part of me almost hoped it was a warning, because if nothing else that would mean I was getting closer.