4:7
Stacey lowered the tissue away from her red eyes. Looking at the windshield she could see the snow collecting on the glass. The side mirrors were frozen over with thick ice.
“Jack,” she said softly, “Where did you get that necklace?”
He glanced over at her quickly and then over to the icy street.
“A women at the Paradox bookstore sold it to me.”
“Did she know what it could do?”
“Yeah. She knew.”
“Why did she sell it to you?” Do you know her or something?”
“No. The first time I ever saw her was the day I bought it.”
Stacey remembered how mad she was at him that morning. She has started to think that he was cheating on her, but now she knew what he had been doing late at night. I still didn’t explain the phone call to the bookstore at 2:00 a.m.
“Did you call to talk to the lady at the store in the middle of the night on Sunday?”
“I don’t know.”
My body’s been walking around at night, I have blood on my hands, and now I’m making phone calls? What the hell is happening to me?
“What do you mean you don’t know? You either did or you didn’t.”
“The thing is, my body’s been, um, doing things while I’ve been travelling. I don’t know why.”
“Doing things? Shit Jack, she didn’t tell you that would happen?”
“No. I’ve been trying to get hold of her but, she’s not home.”
“ Maybe you should lay off using the necklace for awhile, until you talk to her.”
She put her head on his shoulder, “Just to be safe.”
“Yeah.”
“How does it work?” Did she tell you that?”
“Yeah, she told me,” he was so happy to finally be able to tell her about the story.
He knew she would eat it up. She loved that kind of thing.
He cleared his throat and began, “It’s quite a tale.”
She smiled at him excitedly, “Tell me.”
Jack drove carefully down the highway. It took them almost thirty minutes to get from Canon City to Penrose. It was twelve miles of blinding snow and ice. Jack talked the whole way there.
When they pulled into the driveway he was telling her about his experience with heaven. He turned off the key and opened the door. Stacey sat quietly, not moving. She was staring down at the necklace. Her face was full of wonder as she watched the swirling crimson fluid.
“Honey, are you coming inside?”
Surprised, she looked up. They were home.
“Oh. Yeah, I’m coming.”
She smiled up at him. Jack went inside and made a pot of coffee. His wife sat at the kitchen table gazing at the unbelievable motion of the blood. It had her mesmerized.
“What else have you seen?” Tell me more.”
They drank coffee and talked the entire evening. It was the longest conversation they’d had since before they were married. They found themselves interested in each
other. They laughed. The love had made its way back into their hearts. Stacey was so happy when they went to bed she was in tears. Jack caressed her, held her, and made love to her. It was the best either one of them could remember.
He had finally found himself. The happiness he’d lost years ago was there, inside her. She’d been holding on to it, keeping it safe for him.
He fell asleep with his arm resting across her naked body. She laid awake for hours staring up at the ceiling. She was wondering where her mom was now. She imagined her parents soaring hand in hand through the center of Heaven.
4:8
Jack was floating above the trees. He could see his car parked along side the dirt road. It was dark. He saw them around the bonfire, laughing. Two cardboard six-pack containers were lying on the ground by the cooler. The empty bottles were in the fire.
He could feel it in his hand, the ice-cold knife. He swooped down and into his body. It had been hiding in the shadows behind their truck. He watched them drinking and dancing and kissing. The song on the radio was Every Breath you Take. The boom box was on the open tailgate. It was loud. Jack could feel the truck vibrating from the sound.
The girl was young. She had long dark hair. The wavy strands reflected the yellowy firelight. She pushed away from the boy and stumbled backwards. She steadied herself, laughing. He smiled at her.
They were drunk, all four of them. The other couple sat in each other’s arms with their backs to Jack. They couldn’t see him.
The girl walked unsteadily into the woods by herself. Her boyfriend stayed behind, talking to the others. Jack carefully walked around the truck and into the trees. She was out there and he was going to find her.
He circled far around the fire. His heart was thumping as the sky turned bright red. It lit up everything around him. He saw her. She was walking back to them. She didn’t see Jack. It was still nighttime to her. She did however, hear a stick snap under his foot. She jumped.
“Billy?” She said, “Is that you?”
Jack’s pounding in his chest rattled his whole body. He was behind her. He covered her mouth before she could scream. They were in a large clearing not far from the road.
He had her pinned to the ground, covering her mouth with his left hand. She was squirming violently under his weight. He waved the blade in front of her face. She passed out from the fear. Her body went limp. He got up and held the knife above his head. The red sky faded into black. The crimson haze absorbed into him. His whole body was glowing with it. He looked down.
Where is she?
Something on his hands. Wet, sticky. He looked up. She wasn’t gone. She was everywhere. Every blade of grass, every rock and tree, was coated with her. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She had become liquid.
Blood.
Jack was no longer a man in the woods. He had become the pounding of his own quickening heart. He had no hands covered in red. He was only a mist hovering over the clearing. He realized that he wasn’t really there at all.
And yet…somehow…he was still holding the knife.
copyright ©2002 Brian Holtz
All rights reserved