Edge of End

  Chapter twenty one: Dire life

  The next morning I lay on my bed trying to recall the seemingly impossible way that I had made it through the town after life.

  I had returned to my body alone; I had lost both Elizabeth and Malcolm. I didn’t even know if they had been real or had everything and everyone I had experienced just been a figment of my overactive imagination?

  If it had really happened then I would have to find Elizabeth. She too was probably in some hospital.

  The doctors had examined me the previous night. They told me that everything was going to be fine; I would soon be able to return to my normal life–a life now completely unfamiliar to me.

  The police of course had turned up attacking me with a ton of questions and filled out innumerable papers. I had lost my memory, but I hadn’t become an idiot. I refused to answer them and sent them packing–there was no way I would speak to them without my lawyer present.

  The door was yanked open, bringing me back from my thoughts of the town. Grudgingly I turned to look at it and saw relatively short black frizzy-haired man. His face was round like the moon. A large fearsome looking scar traveled from his forehead down to his right cheek.

  I knew him, at least I had met him in my visions back in the night world.

  He greeted me with a half-smile and slipped into the room.

  “I never doubted for a second that you wouldn’t make it back, boss,” he said happily standing at the end of my bed.

  Boss, I thought. Who was I? The head of the mafia or something? “We’ve been guarding your ward day and night. Not a bug could pass by.”

  “What is your name?” I cut him off dryly. “What do you do for me?”

  For a long moment he stood bewildered, his eyes frozen on me. The doctors had told me that I’d been dead for an entire five minutes though I had wandered through that town for much longer. I had then returned and been in a coma for two days.

  “I was in a coma. There are a few things I can’t remember. I’ve lost my memory,” I explained. “You have to help me remember.” Although deep down, I hoped they wouldn’t return.

  “I’m Jack, your right hand man,” he said. “I used to go with you everywhere you went.”

  “Then where were you when I got a shot in my chest?” I asked my voice mixed with a little anger.

  “You said to cut his way at the other end of that alley,” he stammered, his face whitened. “Neither you nor that son of a bitch arrived at the other end, so, when I heard gunshots, I ran down the alley. That’s when I found you both lying next to each other in a bloody pool. You were still breathing.”

  “And him?”

  “He was dead, unfortunately,” his voice faded. He ran his hand through his hair nervously.

  “Why unfortunately?”

  “Because now we don’t know where that prick has hidden our money.”

  Money, echoed in my head. The reason I had killed, the reason I had almost been sent to hell.

  Jack dragged a chair closer to the bed and sat down, heaving a silent sigh. He clasped his hands together and brought them close to his mouth, his eyes dropped downwards deep in thought.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “What?” Jack raised his eyes on me.

  “Who the guy was? Why the hell he had our money.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully for a long moment. Then he sighed and said:

  “He was a very good banker. So you found him about eighteen months ago and involved him in your new project.”

  “What project?” I asked impatiently.

  “You remember Nick Montana, don’t you,” he looked at me with questioning eyes. I shook my head no. “A big fish from Philadelphia. He and you… you,” he paused. “The son of a bitch tried to take our business, sell narcotics in our streets. He even had someone to kill you. In short we made peace with him afterwards–”

  “And I hired the guy to steal from that Nick,” I realized.

  “Yeah. You remember?” Jack asked with hopeful voice.

  “Just fragments,” I replied mildly. “So the guy stole from us too.”

  “Correctly he took our part as well and disappeared. Risk is still too great. If Nick realizes we’re behind all this, the war will begin, bloody war. You put me to track and find that prick.”

  “And you found him,” I mumbled recalling the vision I had had in the night world. I had seen Jack rushing into my office and telling me he had found the guy. I couldn’t take anyone else with me as I trusted only Jack and nobody must know about the banker and my deal. Nick would use all his power to destroy me, I’d lose my alleys, my partners, and I’d stand alone against the Philadelphia gangster. That’s why I darted out my office with Jack and together we drove to the guy.

  The son of a bitch hadn’t even left the city. Clever move, I should attest. He knew we’d think he’d taken the money and left for Europe or South America but obviously he’d underestimated Jack.

  He was in the room and fled through the back door as soon as we parked at the door. That time I didn’t know yet I was going to be dogged by the alley that lay right behind the back door. I entered it determined, the gun in my hand, ordering Jack to cut the banker’s way.

  I pursued him, at first having intended not to kill him as I didn’t know where he had hidden the money. But then I realized he was slipping out of my hand. My mind worked making a new plan. Honestly I wasn’t in need of the money I’d stolen from Nick. Five million dollars. Without the money Nick’s business was going to slow down giving me an opportunity to chase him and leave him out of the game. That was my real plan.

  There were three people aware of my plan. One of them was running in front of me. I made up my mind and lifted the gun. Without him there remained two men knowing my secret–me and Jack. The deal was too high, my very life stood on top, so, determined I shot, taking out one pawn from the puzzled chessboard. I didn’t know clearly what I was going to do to Jack when the guy crashed to the ground letting out a painful cry, but I’d find the right way to sacrifice my friend, my right hand. In the right time when Jack’s death would help my business, I’d do the move and there would be only one–me.

  I found Jack’s eyes that watched me friendly. After what I experienced in the town I felt ashamed that once I’d been ready to kill my friend for my business, for money. I was coming back, or my memories had begun to fill my empty head. Slowly yet but now I had one–the alley.

  For a long moment silence fell on the ward then he spoke.

  “I’m sorry, John. I shouldn’t have left you alone. This is all my fault–”

  I cut him off with a gesture: “It’s not your fault Jack,” I interrupted him. I looked at his worried face. “I need you to find somebody.”

  “Anything you wish,” he added obediently.

  “Turn all the hospitals upside-down. I don’t know how, but find me a red-haired woman named Elizabeth. She has tried to commit suicide,” as I talked about Elizabeth, the image of her brown eyes lingered in front of me. She was like a ghost in my mind; the most beautiful and lovely ghost I’d ever met. “Start at this hospital. She must be somewhere around, she must be found.”

  Jack leaned back against the chair pensively. He had every reason to think I was crazy and was talking utter madness.

  “I’ll find her, don’t worry,” he said instead.

  “Okay,” I murmured and added. “I need a lawyer.”

  “Benedict has already been working on it trying to get you out of this shit,” Jack said, and I realized that this Benedict was my lawyer. “He told me we could make this all out to be a case of self-defense.”

  “Good thinking,” they were the only words managed.

  “He’s outside, waiting to talk to you,” Jack informed. “I told him stay put until you call for him.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to have a talk with a lawyer, but it seemed like I had no option.

  “There is something else you should know, too,” Jack broke the silence. I nodded for
him to continue, and he went on. “Your ex-wife has sued you. She wants half of your property and what belongs to your daughter.”

  My daughter. The person the town had tried to threaten me with. Apart from the visions I’d had, I knew nothing about her.

  “Give them what they want,” I said sadly trying to sit up. The hole in my chest was still burning, and I moaned in pain as I pushed myself up. Jack jumped to his feet taking me by my shoulders and helping me into a more comfortable position.

  “Are you supposed to move?” he asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  When I leaned against the pillow that Jack had carefully put behind me, he sat down again sighing.

  “John,” he began. “I know you’ve lost some part of your memory, but it’s my duty to remind you that you didn’t intend to give your wife a penny.”

  I observed Jack’s face carefully as if that would be able to restore some of my memories, but only darkness and emptiness filled my head.

  “I don’t care what I had planned before,” I muttered hardly letting out my breath. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Go, find me Elizabeth now,” I ordered.

  He stared at me for another long moment, probably searching for the right words to say to me, but eventually he thought better of it and stood up.

  “See you,” he said and hurriedly disappeared out the door.

  I closed my eyes in relief. My thoughts wandered around that little girl I had seen in my vision, my daughter, Melissa.

  Had I been a good father? Or had I been an absolute monster as I had been in those nightmares?

  The door swung open again, and a man of about fifty with graying hair and glasses stepped in. He wore a huge fake smile from ear to ear. It was my money that made him feel so delighted.

  “Benedict, I’m guessing,” I spoke first, beckoning him in.

  “Yes. How do you feel Mr. Cruss?” he asked shutting the door behind him.

  At the very least I now knew my last name. I smiled slightly and invited him to take a seat.

  The night wore on. Benedict had left some time earlier. We had talked, and he had given me some advice as to what I should and shouldn’t say in court. Just like Jack had, he had urged me to refuse my wife’s demands, but I made it clear that I wanted to be fair to them. Of course, I was willing to give money to my daughter, my child; it didn’t matter whether I knew her or not, whether she loved me or hated me–that was irrelevant.

  The first dream visited me that night since I was back to my body. I was walking in the storm, along the empty street of the town, soul-eaters hovering around me broad and wick smiles pinned to their hideous faces. I wasn’t afraid of them, I knew they wouldn’t hurt me as I wasn’t the part of their world anymore, not yet. But their gleaming and creepy eyes talked to me, saying I’d be back to them one day, sooner or later.

  Yet I pressed on deep into the storm until I was standing at the familiar house. I regarded it expecting to see Melissa and her mother. As my eyes traveled over the garden and met the door, I saw Malcolm, the black rag wrapped around the left side of his head, beckoning me with a wan smile. I grinned back glad to meet the old man who had aided me and led to the light.

  I walked across the garden and climbed the stars now standing in front of Malcolm.

  “Hey,” I said cheerfully.

  The old man’s smile faded away. He looked me from up to down with his one magical eye, then patted his hand on my shoulder. He opened the front door and invited me in.

  I looked at him uncomprehendingly, but I trusted him and walked in. The door shut behind me, the storm wheeze deafening in my ears instantly. I was in a cubicle, the doorway to my right leading to the kitchen. Having seen nobody I paced slowly to it.

  The table was laid, a boy about ten to eleven was seated at it his head tilted over his plate full of spaghetti.

  “Say thanks to God for the food, honey,” a woman’s voice echoed in my ears. A second later she got into the kitchen–a blond-haired, tall, with athletic body beautiful woman of her middle thirties. She came up to the boy and put her hand on his head softly as the boy prayed soundlessly.

  “Good boy,” she said as he opened his eyes and looked up. He was as blond as the woman, blue-eyed and thin. “Mommy loves you, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” the boy replied his voice sad.

  “Now eat. I need you to grow up a strong man. You’ll take care of your Mommy, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” the boy answered as his eyes dropped down to his plate.

  But he didn’t know he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise. I remembered her–the woman. Despite the poor and hopeless life she had, suffering and working hard to stay alive, she had been giving too much love to her only child–the boy who wouldn’t give the same back. That was the last time he would ever see her again.

  The boy sensed it, that’s why he was anxious, his voice sad and eyes mournful.

  The front door opened and I jerked around to see a lusty man dragging himself in, his hair disheveled covering his face, his clothes dusty and dirty. He stopped and brushed his hair back regarding the cubicle. His eyes rolled and finally focused on the woman standing at the kitchen entrance. A wick smile curled his lips.

  “Woman,” he said his voice loud and husky. “Help me with this,” he tried to kick off his shoes.

  The woman obediently approached him and got down to her knees. I looked back at the boy and met horror in his eyes. He had come up to me now lurking behind the wall.

  When the woman took off his shoes he kicked her aside rudely and started walking towards me limping. The man was drunk or had drug. He entered the kitchen approaching the table and his malicious eyes missed the boy who noiselessly sneaked out.

  “Jonny!” the man cried out and the boy stopped dead in the middle of the cubicle looking at his mother dreadfully.

  “Yes Daddy,” the boy responded his voice shaking.

  “Come here.”

  The boy turned around and reluctantly marched back into the kitchen.

  “How many times I have to say you not to call me Daddy?” the man asked angrily. The boy just dropped his eyes to the floor standing at him quivering. “Little prick. Why don’t you eat?”

  “I ate,” the boy lied.

  As he closed his mouth the man slapped him across his face and the boy tumbled to the floor cupping his face.

  The woman shrieked hysterically and ran into the kitchen.

  “Why is your plate full? You lie to me little son of a bitch.”

  The woman flung herself between the man and her child. “Please, Tom. Let him go.” She begged with hateful eyes staring at him. “I’ll do everything. Don’t hit him,”

  “You’ll do everything I want,” the man roared. “What else would you do? But I can’t stand this little liar in my house. This prick.”

  I saw the boy’s eyes twitched, anger filling him. He looked at the table searching the knife, determined to rush and grab it and stab it in the man’s fresh.

  The man squeezed the woman’s hand and lifted her. Her sobbing voice followed but she pressed her lips together. He rudely bent her over the table.

  “You have to be punished every time you lie to me, little man,” the man said with a gloating smile while the woman did some desperate tries to get loose. “Stop,” he grabbed the boy who had tried to run away and tossed him back to the floor.

  The boy didn’t let a cry, he was surprisingly silence, his furious eyes staring at the man.

  “You do this to your mother every time,” the man smirked and lifted the woman’s dress baring her buttocks.

  “No, Tom, please,” the woman moaned. “Let the boy go. He doesn’t need to see this. I’ll do everything you say. Just let him loose.”

  “Shut up, bitch,” he slapped her butt in full measure causing her to cry in pain. With another quick move he slipped her pink panties over her legs and started unzipping his pants. “You watch this, bastard. Man shouldn’t lie, ever. Especially to his par
ents. You’ll learn the lesson, and you’ll be thankful to me one day.”

  “Tom, don’t make him watch this,” the woman proceeded pleading with whispering voice, but she was too scared to do anything. She wept soundlessly, covering her eyes with her hand.

  The man ignored her like she was a doll and he was explaining the boy how to play with it. He freed his dick and placed it between her legs followed by painful and miserable voice.

  “Close your eyes, baby,” she steadied her voice and looked at her child through tearful eyes. “Close them. Close your ears. It’s gonna be okay. It’s okay, baby.”

  But the boy kept unblinkingly staring at his father banging his mother on the kitchen table. Just looking in them I knew his insides were welling, anger squeezing every ounce of his body. The next moment he shot to his feet, and before the man could react, he winded out the kitchen and ran toward the front door. I watched him open it and get out without another glance back.

  The next hour the boy ran never intending to stop. He didn’t look back, he veered to the left or to the right randomly, just to be away from his home, from his father, from the nightmare he had lived all his life regardless of his mother’s love. He ran determined to never come back again. And he hadn’t.

  I woke up covered in sweat, gasping for air. Memories. The boy craving to kill his sadist father had been me once. Oh, how much I longed to meet him in the town and beat the shit out of him for what he’d done to my life. He was responsible I had chosen this way to live my life. I was angry, my blood welling in my veins, I hadn’t had much choice just from the beginning. The woman who gave a birth to me had loved me too much, she’d probably commit suicide like Elizabeth but she had faced every difficult, every beating and my father who had come home drunken, drugged, with bloodshot eyes.

  The rest of night was sleepless and restless. My childhood poured in my head, the boy who had fled from his home and found himself alone in the streets, starving and cold. And there was when I met Jack. I lived in his back yard, in a dog house in a daytime. When the night fell I sneaked into his house while his mother went to work at a strip club downtown.

  I had to do something not to die. I stole, at first food, then money and afterwards I’d become my father. I hadn’t realized that until I was sent to Morsfinis–the town for sin souls while their bodies weren’t fully dead back on Earth.

  When Melissa was born I thought everything was going to change. But the path I walked was like a tube that vacuumed me into emptiness. Sometime, rarely, there was someone who broke loose, and after Morsfinis I could be added to that list.

  I hated these memories, I wished them never come back. After I had gone after Elizabeth and had run risk to save her, from that point onward I was no longer that boy.

  Two days rolled by. No news about Elizabeth’s whereabouts. I started doubting in her existence at all. Maybe she’d been my inside voice taking a human look and coming to rescue my ripped soul. Sometimes, when I was lying alone in my ward, between the break of my visitors–my friends, the guys working for me, Benedict, even two blond women working in a brothel I had used to go every weekend before I was shot–I sank deep in thoughts and ponder. Was the town real? I still could sense its nasty smelling air, could clearly see those hideous faces of the residents in my mind’s eyes, but the town could be the imagination of my stressed brain. Everything that had happened there could be a kid’s imagination who once had wished to be a superhero that saved his and his beloved’s lives. A kid who lived amidst the debris of my memories.

  I wasn’t expecting anyone, and a knock on the door brought me back to reality. I lifted my head in interest.

  “Come in,” I said loudly.

  Jack’s face appeared from behind in the doorway. With a thin smile on his face he slid in and moved to the foot of my bed.

  “I’ve found her,” he said solemnly. “That Elizabeth.”

  Air refused to leave my lungs. The town was real, and Elizabeth’s soul was there.

  “Are you sure that’s her?” I asked.

  “Red-haired woman, the name is Elizabeth. I found her in a hospital.”

  “Where is she?” I asked at once bolting into an upright sitting position. Again a sharp pain jolted through my chest, I gasped.

  Jack was beside me in a second and held me carefully, “You’re weak John, and you should stay in bed. I’ll call for the nurse.”

  “Where is she?” I grabbed his arm as strong as I could.

  “Los-Angeles. Our friends from there just called me. That’s her.”

  Too long way to cross from New Jersey to California. But I had to see her, look into her eyes.

  “Take me to her Jack. Now!” My hands began trembling.

  Jack hesitated, gazing down at me blankly.

  “I can’t John. For your sake,” he added quickly as he met my stern look. “You have to stay here at least two more days.”

  “Fuck, Jack,” I bowled. “Are you a doctor? I didn’t know that. Just give me your hand and help me to stand up. We’re leaving. Now!”

  He propped his arm behind me and helped me drag my legs to the edge of the bed. My body wasn’t as strong as it had been in ‘Morsfinis’. It was tired, weak, and my bones cracked as I stood.

  “Easy, John, easy,” Jack kept saying as he walked me slowly towards the door.

  I couldn’t bring myself to go any slower. My heart was hammering, and I was eager to get out of the hospital.

  Jack led me out where a car was waiting us to arrive. Clad in my expensive black clothes, my chest bandaged, I got into the car and ordered the driver to take us to the airport at once. Jack never left me.

  The flight was long, mostly Jack asleep and me thinking, remembering Elizabeth as if I was repeatedly reminding my mind about her beautiful face just in case if it was going to forget her. I needed to see her and realize that the town had been real, whatever I had done there was real and I could change, I could give up the present me and start the new me, the guy who’d been determined to sacrifice his soul and save Elizabeth. This man would have a future.

  “You never told me about her,” Jack asked. “You’ve found one of your relatives?”

  “No, she’s not that,” I replied.

  “Who is she? Why is this rush?”

  “Please, Jack. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”

  “You met her secretly? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Jack, I’ll tell you everything when I meet her, okay?”

  The agonizing hours were left behind. We were at her ward. The pain in my chest I stared at the door separating me from her. She was behind it. She was probably sleeping, dreaming…, but what about?

  I stopped dead in my tracks at the door; my hand froze on the knob; would she even remember me? Would she still have the same memories of me? Would she see the man who she had given hope and the desire to return to life as a better person?

  Still I didn’t hesitate for too long. I yanked the door open and there she was. Her red tangled hair fell across her chest in a mess. Her eyes closed, she was probably asleep. She was breathing lightly, not troubled by anything.

  I entered slowly, it felt almost unreal.

  Jack stayed at the door and closed it behind me. There was a strong magnetism that was pulling me closer towards Elizabeth with no effort on my part.

  Elizabeth, I kept calling her name in my mind, but my lips didn’t move and were dry. I stood at her bedside, watching her breathing calmly.

  I noted the bandages wrapped around both her arms. My guess had been right; she had tried to take her life by slicing her wrists. She had wanted to extinguish her own life after the deaths of her husband and daughter.

  I wondered if she remembered them, if she had recalled her memories.

  I didn’t know how long I had been standing there staring at her, but she somehow felt my presence and opened her eyes. She blinked her eyes repeatedly and looked at me, embarrassed.

  “Jonathan, is that really you?” A breath es
caped her lungs in a hissing rush. I recalled her house in Morsfinis; she had asked the same question when I had gone back for her.

  “Yes, it’s me,” my face lit up with smile. I knelt down next to her and screwed up my eyes in pain taking her hand in mine and just held it. “It’s me. I’ve found you again.”

  Her big brown eyes welled up, and she burst into tears. She wept in silence and looked at me through confused eyes trying to figure out whether it was real, or just another dream.

  “Jonathan, she’s dead. My little girl is dead,” she said closing her eyes in pain. “I remembered. I wished I didn’t, but I am.”

  A year ago a car accident had taken away her husband and her daughter. She had struggled to live on, alone, accompanied with memories until she had ended up in Morsfinis.

  “I know,” I muttered.

  “How long?”

  “I saw your girl in the bathroom in the town when I came to rescue you for the second time. You should’ve known that too. The town gave you signs, the visions.”

  “I didn’t want to believe,” she said.

  “So don’t believe now,” I put my hand on her cheek. “Elizabeth, we’ve made it, we’ve come from the town. Now you have to live and you have to change your destination to heaven. Your girl is there.” I gushed happily. My voice was trembling as I spoke. I wanted to cry out loud and shout about our great victory against hell, but the only thing I could manage was to lean in towards her forehead and breathe in her sweet scent. How sweet she was, how fetching, how beautiful!

  We both laughed through our tears and through the pain that we were both feeling. She traced her finger over my check and then her hand slid down to mine.

  “It’s kind of weird without my supernatural powers,” I said half-jokingly. I was as weak as any other human and I didn’t feel any strangeness rushing through my veins.

  “Your power is here,” she put her hand on my heart. “It was always here, you just didn’t realize it.”

  She was right. I cupped her face, looked into her eyes and kissed her tenderly on the lips–a kiss between two bodies, not souls. Her delicious moist lips were sweet and inviting.

  “Unfortunately, I’m not a guy, and you can’t beat the shit out of me,” she remembered giggling.

  “Yeah,” I murmured. “And I’m not a gay. You can never get rid of me. I’ll keep you imprisoned in my arms until–” I hesitated.

  “Until Malcolm comes and says,” she changed her voice trying to pretend the old man. “Hey, lovebirds. Get over this. The life is over.”

  The room filled with our laughs.