Available Darkness: Chapter 40

by admin on February 11, 2010

Hope trembled, unable to draw sense from the scrambled mess of thoughts scattering her focus.

John stood at the foot of the stairs, dumbstruck. “What are you talking about?”

“In the painting, the woman in the picture, lying on the ground. She was dead.”

“There isn’t a woman in the painting,” John said.

“I painted over her! That’s why I was so upset last night! I painted you as a … killer.”

John took a step forward, feeling a sudden need to soothe the tension with an embrace. He wrapped his fingers gently around her arm. Hope flinched. Only for a moment, but it was long enough for him to notice. He took a step back.

“Wait a second; you don’t think I killed that woman, do you?”

Hope shook her head, “No! But I painted her, John. I saw her. And now she’s missing. What does that mean?”

“Maybe it was someone else in the painting,” John reasoned.

“She had the same tattoo!” Hope choked in the middle of her sentence making same tattoo sound like a separate thought. Tears streamed down her face, making her cheeks pink and puffy looking.

John reached out again, arms open. This time, she collapsed into his embrace. While Hope didn’t really believe that John could be responsible for killing someone, some part of her, perhaps the same part that foresaw the girl’s disappearance was still wary of him. And yet, strangely, another part, the one being comforted in his strong embrace, didn’t care if he admitted to being a murderer. At that moment, in his embrace, he could have confessed to anything and it wouldn’t have mattered.

“There’s an explanation for this,” John said, his breath warm on her head as he held her tightly. “Maybe you recognized her from the neighborhood, or at the bar?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s a coincidence. She’s been missing for what? Two nights? She’s young. She’s probably out partying or something and forgot to check in with her roommate.”

Hope pulled away, and looked up at John. “Do you think so?”

“I don’t know what else to think,” John said.

They stood there for a while, at the foot of the stairs, their embrace tightening as though a taut caress could change the truth. At first, Hope thought John was simply offering her comfort. But, no, there was something else there. John seemed scared. But of what?

As John showered and got ready for work, Hope wrapped herself in the comfort of their bed, and wondered just how well she really knew John.

They had met during a time of sea change for both of them.

Hope graduated from the Pratt Institute in New York in 1995, but found breaking into the well-paying end of the art scene about as easy as spinning straw into gold. After a vacation with a friend, she found herself in love with St. Augustine and its old world Spanish architecture. Though the art community was smaller than New York’s, it wasn’t much easier to crack. She’d entered and won a few contests, took part in some exhibits, but hadn’t exactly broken out or been able to translate her efforts into regular income.

At first, she told herself she’d wait tables at Umberto’s to support her artistic endeavors. She considered herself an artist, who happened to wait tables. Then, almost without realizing it, she’d nearly stopped painting completely. She was a server, who just happened to occasionally paint.

In her experience, dreams didn’t die quick deaths, so much as suffocate in a slow and almost invisible process.

Then she met Sergei.

He, and his boyfriend, Stephan, were regular customers of hers at the restaurant. They were extremely friendly and often joked with her, asking about her day with nearly identical smiles. Surprisingly, Hope had never thought to mention her artistic passion. One day, she overheard them talking about an old gallery that had gone out of business the year before. Hope slipped into the conversation and discovered Sergei was also an artist. He’d made his money, quite a bit of it judging from his taste in clothes and wines, in real estate. He had decided to bankroll his true passion and open up his own commercial gallery.

Hope joked, “Got room to showcase an up-and-comer painter/waitress?”

She was kidding. She never thought they’d take her seriously.

Stephan, suddenly excited, said, “What do you paint?”

“Oils, mostly—realism, romanticism, impressionism,” Hope laughed, “I’ve even tried pointillism. Take your pick of any -ism, really.”

For a moment, she worried that perhaps she should have been a bit more serious in her response. However, she was so used to the carefree banter with them that she found it hard to be serious.

“Do you have any samples?” Sergei asked.

“Yeah, I carry canvases wherever I go,” Hope joke again, before biting her tongue. Then she remembered that she’d given her boss, Umberto, a painting for his birthday the month prior. She practically skipped to his office and asked if she could borrow it for a second, then ran back to the table.

“Ta-da,” she said, holding the canvas, trying to get the best lighting.

It wasn’t her best work by any means, but it was good. The painting was of the diner, a pedestrian subject, but one she thought would please Umberto. The magic in the painting wasn’t in its subject, however, it was in the beautiful mingling of light and shadow which cast the canvas in a romantic warmth.

“Oh my god,” Stephan said. To say he loved the painting was an understatement. Sergei echoed the sentiments.

Two months later, Sergei featured two of Hope’s works at the grand opening of his gallery. Little did she know one of those paintings would lure John into her life.

TO BE CONTINUED…Next Friday.

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Available Darkness: Chapter 39

by admin on February 4, 2010

October 2, 1999
St. Augustine, Florida

The officers could have hit John in the head with a sledgehammer and the ringing in his ears wouldn’t have been any different. He stared in disbelief, his senses on fire.

The photo, it was her, the girl in his dream the past few nights. The girl he had murdered and fed off her life force.

His brain buzzed and stomach churned. Hs heart pounded at three times the beat, rocking something inside him like a raft on a turbulent sea. John thought he could keep it inside. The mask of innocence was warm on his face before he’d even opened the door. The disguise had once been daunting, but it had grown a little less difficult with each day spent burying his curse beneath the facade.

John tried not to stare at the frozen face on the glossy picture, the woman who haunted the blurry frames of his dreams, staring with dead eyes directly through him. The photo threatened to split his mask at the seams and reveal the savage monster that was lying in wait.

“Have you seen her?” Detective Avery repeated.

“Can’t say I have,” John lied, pretending to wipe sleep from his eyes. Hope’s fingernails cut into his flesh as she pulled herself closer to him.

“Her name is Rebecca Ashby, she lives one street over. Went missing two days ago,” Avery said. “We’re asking around to see if anybody’s seen her.”

John shook his head, trying not to oversell his ignorance.

“No,” he turned to Hope, “How about you, honey?”

Hope’s face was a sheet, as though she were the one with something to hide. John’s eyebrows met in confusion, the first honest emotion to crack the surface of his mask.

“No,” Hope shook her head after too long of a pause, “I mean … she looks familiar. Maybe I’ve seen her in the neighborhood, but … no, I don’t think I’ve seen her in the past few days. What happened?”

Avery’s head tilted slightly, as if he were somehow picking up on and trying to process whatever Hope was hiding. John looked at Detective Johnson and felt a slight chill as the officer met his gaze. John glanced back at Avery, as his insides started to stir. A current of energy began to brew in his fingertips as the darkness threatened to rise.

The darkness he had buried for more than two years, the power he thought he’d managed to lock away for good, was right there, ready to explode from his body and annihilate his enemies.

No, not now.

If the darkness broke free, then nobody was safe. If Hope touched him, she would be reduced to ashes.

No, no, no, no.

He closed his eyes and concentrated his breathing.

Slowly … In and out … Focus.

“Her roommate reported her missing, “ Avery said. “Last time anybody saw her was Wednesday night at Harry’s Pub, where she works as a waitress.”

“Ah, that’s where I’ve seen her,” Hope said, “but no, I haven’t seen her recently.”

Avery glanced at her for what seemed an eternity.

The darkness swelled beneath John’s skin, begging for release. Ready at a moment’s notice to strike.

Suddenly, the truth became impossible to ignore. Though John thought he’d buried his curse, it was only dormant, waiting to turn its whisper into a wail. Only it hadn’t been dormant, had it? Not if he had anything to do with this missing woman. And between the blurry map of his dreams and the two officers standing on his front porch, anything outside the obvious seemed highly unlikely.

He’d gone to the bar, spotted her, followed her as she walked home, and then pounced on her, predator to prey. He dragged her into a side street, then into the underbrush where he swallowed every drop of the life inside her. In the dreams that had plagued him in recent nights, flashes of her memories pulsed through his brain. Suddenly, on the doorstep, in front of the questioning police, those memories started to spill into his waking life. And with them, the darkness swelled as he struggled to keep his face a solid, emotionless mask.

“Well, if you remember anything or see her, give me a call, will ya?”

Avery handed Hope his card.

Hope reached out and took it. Her hand was shaking just slightly, John noticed, through the chorus of memories and thoughts flooding his head. He hoped the shake was subtle enough that the cop hadn’t picked up on it.

Apparently, he hadn’t, as he and his partner thanked them for their time, then turned around and left.

“Good luck,” John managed to say as he extinguished the porch light and quietly closed the door.

The darkness receded alongside the messy spill of memories. He drew breath from the deep air of relief, then noticed that Hope was staring at him, her eyes wet.

“She’s the girl,” Hope said.

“What?” John asked.

“In that … painting, with you. She was in the painting. You were floating over her. You had … killed her.”

TO BE CONTINUED…Next Friday.

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Available Darkness: Chapter 38

by admin on January 28, 2010

October 2, 1999
St. Augustine, Florida

Hope lay in bed, mentally tracing her fingers over John’s angular jaw, across his chin, and then over his soft lips as his breath rose, fell, and whispered between them.

The soft blue light of predawn made her feel ridiculous for her mini-breakdown hours earlier.

The painting, which she’d started without any thoughts of what it was or where it would eventually go, had taken a dark turn in recent weeks. It was a non-commissioned piece and not something she planned to show at her friend Sergei’s gallery. She initially thought the new direction was some unrealized artistic desire bubbling up and pushing her to explore her boundaries.

However, as the painting progressed, she began to sense another power at work. Night after night, she was continuously pulled from her sleep, unable to rest until she returned to the canvas, adding bits and pieces of images, compelled to lay them across the canvas as though she were obsessively divining the will of the Gods.

She’d never felt so out of control and without direction, save for the first painting she’d ever professionally shown, Dusk Wanderlust. The one which drew John into Sergei’s art gallery when it first opened in the historic district of St. Augustine nearly two years ago. Just as that painting seemed to draw her and John together as one, this painting seemed more ominous, though she wasn’t quite sure why, as though it would rip them back to two.

The angel didn’t originally start out looking like John. He originally appeared a rather generic, golden-haired heavenly being. Prior to that morning, there was also another person in the painting—the broken body of a red haired woman, her body draped in black. A dark tattoo of a shooting star stained the pale flesh along the nape of her neck.
Hope wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was positive the angel had just killed the woman.

Then, last night, she was roused from her sleep with a sudden, burning desire to return to the canvas and scrub it with changes. Without realizing where her mind was moving her hands, she’d endowed the angel with her lover’s face.

Two hours later, sweat matting the hair on her forehead, she dropped her brush and lost the first of her tears. Shaking, she knelt down and picked it back up, then quickly began to paint over the dead woman’s body in violent strokes of indigo and violet.

Horror was bubbling to the surface of their lives. Hope could feel it burning beneath her skin and in every pore of her body. Well, at least, in the inky shadows of the night.

In the bright light of morning, under the down covers of a warm, soft bed, that fear seemed as out of place as a grandfather clock in the corner of a nightclub. John had talked her down from the ledge last night, helping her examine why she was so upset. She didn’t tell him about the woman in the painting because some part of her felt it had something to do with infidelity and she didn’t want to appear insecure. If there was one thing Hope knew about John without any doubt whatsoever, it was that he was a faithful man.

During his examination of the painting, John told her, with a satisfied smile, that she’d never been so happy for such a long period of time. That realization, in the face of the looming two year milestone of their dating, was bringing some nested fear to the surface and manifesting itself in the form of this unsettling painting.

“The fear will go away,” he’d said, squeezing her shoulder blades beneath his large, strong hands. He turned her around, then pulled her into his embrace, absorbing her tears as they soaked the thick cotton of his nightshirt. “You deserve to be happy.”

While other men in her life had analyzed her only to determine that there was something wrong with her and that it was her fault she was miserable because she must be afraid of happiness, or some such psychobabble, John didn’t search for what was wrong.

He simply told her what was right—them and their love.

And he was right. She deserved to be happy. She just needed to get past the fears.

Even though they’d been together for two years—her longest relationship by at least 14 months—they had never settled into the mundane routine which seemed to poison the wells of so many other relationships around her. She sometimes wondered why this man seemed so different than all the others?

She was far too cynical to believe in things like fate or soul mates. But the inner romantic in her, the one who existed at her core despite all the bad experiences life had seen fit to throw her way, secretly believed that John was the closest thing to a soul mate she would ever know.

They were different in many ways, but their differences seemed to work in harmony. While she was anxious, frenetic and prone to emotional flights and dives, he was calm, laid back and perhaps the most evenly tempered person she’d ever known. However, they also had many things in common, including a love for reading, art, and equally at home discussing philosophy or why there would never be a show on TV better than the X-Files.

John was also the first person who ever took such a deep curiosity in knowing everything about her—from what she was like as a child (a clumsy, scrawny introvert), to the consistency of her dreams (incredibly rare), to her deepest fears (being unable to conceive a child), to what inspired each and every one of her paintings. At times, John appeared like a scholar with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of the subject of her, no matter how uninteresting she sometimes felt.

Perhaps the biggest reason their love was so intense, even after all this time, was that to her, John was still something of a mystery.

He worked as a cook at an upscale Italian restaurant just a short walk from Sergei’s gallery, and didn’t talk much about his life before moving to Florida, which he said was rather ordinary. With any other man, she would suspect such reticence to be indicative of an unseemly past filled with debauchery and selfish deeds.

John was different, though.

He grew up in more than 20 foster homes after his parents died, drifting from state to state, never really establishing roots in any of them. He spent his time working and reading and sometimes composing music on piano, though he never played for another soul. He had no friends, family or meaningful relationships. John was, in some ways, a blank slate, a guy who seemed to have been waiting for some spark to bring him to life. Hope was that spark, he confessed during one of their few discussions of his past.

Despite his claims to the ordinary, there were times, such as this, when she lay next to him in bed watching him sleep, that she felt there was far more to John than she might ever know. There was a deeper John somewhere inside, a John who had yet to look her in the eye. She suspected that perhaps he had suffered some great hurt which made him the way he was, so remote and distant to everyone other than her.

She moved a bit closer to him in bed, wanting to touch him, but not wake him.

John’s eyes opened and his left eyebrow arched.

“Are you watching me sleep?” he asked, a smile breaking through the surface of his tired face. It wasn’t the first time she’d been busted.

She slid towards him under the sheets, her hand sliding under his shirt and finding his warm chest as her leg wrapped around his groin. She felt his cock stiffen immediately. She smiled.

“Well, good morning,” she said as she climbed on top of him and reached down to slide him into her.

“Wow,” John said, still smiling, “it is a good morning.”

Suddenly, the sound of their doorbell shattered the intimacy of the moment.

“What the hell?” Hope said, climbing off of John and cycling through the possible selections in her mind—who could possibly be showing up on her doorstep at this hour?

John threw on some jeans and then flew downstairs.

He peered through the front door’s peep hole and glanced back at Hope, who stood at the foot of the stairs with the phone in her hand—just in case she needed to call the cops.

She didn’t need to, though. They were standing at her doorstep.

“It’s the cops,” John whispered, a confused look on his face.

He flicked on the porch light and opened the door. Hope, suddenly by his side, wrapped both her arms around his right one.

“Hi, I’m Detective Avery,” said the tall, hawk-nosed, dark-haired cop with raccoon circles under his eyes. “This is Detective Johnson,” he said, gesturing toward his partner, a thin black man with salt and pepper hair and a receding hair line.

“We’re wondering if either of you have seen this woman?”

Avery held out a photo. Hope’s throat closed and her stomach nearly fell through the floorboards. Staring back at her was a glossy image of a red haired woman, a shooting star tattoo leaving a trail of ink across the nape of her neck.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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Available Darkness: Chapter 37

by admin on January 21, 2010

October 2,1999

Los Angelas, California

Jacob stood on the building’s ledge, wind whipping the loose charcoal suit against his wiry frame. The city view from 50 stories in the sky personified his feelings about humanity: almost beautiful, from a distance.

He’d been on their soil, mingling among the insects for far too long. His body was starting to show signs of human frailty. His face was sunken and pale. His hair had all fallen out years ago. His pain was constant.

Of course, Jacob could regenerate at any time, but his desire to feed had faded a while ago. A few months earlier, he’d started to widen the gap between feedings. Now he was trying to see how far he could stretch the rubber band before it finally snapped. Though he’d not given it much thought, he supposed he was trying to see how close he could drift to death before she finally circled her fingers around him.

Death was an inviting mistress, offering sweet release from breathing the breath of a world in which he didn’t belong.

When he first crossed over, thirsty for vengeance against his mother and brothers, the idea of a new world seemed to harbor eternal wonder. It was the world’s initial beauty and seemingly endless possibilities, actually, which had caused him to spare his young brothers’ lives so many years before. He had planned to kill them all, planned to make them pay for their treachery. There was however, something about this world, a chance to reinvent himself, create a new life away from his father and his expectations, that seemed liberating.

Of course, his singular act of mercy was a splinter of resolve that had haunted him for years. Because, ironically enough, his brothers were the only ones on this planet who knew of the one way back home. Of course, he had not known that back then. And now they were now beyond his reach, hidden by the conspirators who sought to rid the world of all of his kind while he remained stuck in eternal purgatory.

Though he knew better than to believe in such human constructs as Hell, Jacob surely felt as if he were stuck in his own version of it. He was tired of this world and its people; narrow-minded, petty creatures with such limited intellect. They did serve their purposes, though. They were such wonderful fun to torment. And the pleasure of a good hunt was universal, regardless of the animal. Frankly, Jacob was amazed humans had gotten as far as they had as a species—not that they hadn’t had some help along the way from his kind.

Jacob creased his face with a slight smile as his memories drifted back to his first home, the true one. Though it had been two decades since he’d last laid eyes on it, Earth, for all its incessant assaulting of the senses, could not erase the nostalgia for home from his mind. The spiraling snow capped mountains, the lush green and blue forests, and the sky at night—a dizzying array of colors and shapes. He also longed for Other World’s denizens, a rich diversity of species which made Earth seem like a small fish tank in comparison. To think that he would never lay eyes on another Allutroch only made him sadder than he already was.

He glanced again at the pavement below. Given his weakened state, he wondered if the fall would finally do it. His foot inched forward, seemingly with a mind of its own. He laughed at the thought that his body was willing to do what his mind had not found the strength to carry out.

Perhaps I should listen to my body.

His right foot was hovering in midair, 50 stories above probable death, when a ringing from his pocket suddenly whispered above the wind’s cry.

He laughed again. Cell phones, always interrupting him from important tasks.

He looked at the screen. It was Davis, a man he had not heard from in more than a year. Davis was a descendant of one of The Pioneers and wouldn’t be calling Jacob to exchange pleasantries.

No, this was important.

Jacob turned, leaped to the rooftop, then dangled his legs from the ledge where he’d just seconds ago been ready to jump.

“Yes?” Jacob answered the phone.

“It’s Davis,” the man on the other line said. He sounded excited. “I found him!”

Jacob said nothing. The words had paralyzed him with something he had never felt before—hope.

Davis continued, “I found John.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

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Available Darkness: Chapter 36

by admin on January 14, 2010

Abigail’s body moved with alien instincts. She was surprised by her hands locking on Lydia, and startled by the energy, which surged into her fingers, then flowed through her arms and into her brain.

Memories coursed through Abigail’s mind like a torrent of waves bursting through a dam. The images were foreign; memories from another life lived—Lydia’s life, unfurling before Abigail as she feasted on the energy swirling from the woman’s emptying shell.

The memories overwhelmed Abigail.

Lydia’s older sister, Vicky, took her pink dolly away from her “she’s mine!” Lydia was hurt. Then, another memory, of Larry and she, in bed. Larry was casually puffing on a cigarette while drawing lazy circles on Lydia’s breasts with his fingers and whispering odes to her beauty. Then, she watched, through Lydia’s eyes as her boyfriend, Tony bloodied his knuckles against an unmoving wall. Fury rose from him like vapor and Lydia was afraid…

Then, darkness extinguished the memory.

The energy stopped flowing and Abigail sat, hunched over, staring at the charred corpse beneath her.

Lydia’s memories continued to flicker like a strobe light in Abigail’s mind, threading through her own images of yesterday, weaving all thoughts into one incomprehensible tapestry.

Lydia as a girl again, this time walking to school, alone. She was fiercely proud not to need an escort. A big girl now. Though school was only two short blocks away, you’d think it was two miles, the way her mom kept carrying on. Lydia had made it almost all the way to school when she caught a movement in the corner of her eye. She turned just in time to see her mom, about half a block behind her, ducking behind a car. Lydia flared. “Mom, how could you?”

Grief clawed at her throat as Abigail experienced and mourned Lydia’s life, which had been reduced to moments remembered in her dying gasps.

Abigail’s body had never felt more alive, but the intoxication of power did nothing to soothe the decay she felt in her mind and soul. She wanted to weep, but no tears would come. Sadness washed over her, as another flood of memories seeped through her system. She struggled to focus on the here and now. Then, she heard a familiar voice—John!

She stood and turned, desperate for sanctuary from the darkness swallowing her soul.

John’s back was turned to her as he stood over Larry. They appeared to have been fighting. She noted the gun on the floor behind Larry. He noticed her first, eyes wide and mouth slightly opened. Then, John turned to her; a cold sadness sculpted his marble face.

She struggled to push words from her mouth, though breath would’ve been a good start. “What happened?” she finally managed.

“You were hurt,” John said, as he cautiously approached her, “You were dying. And I… saved you.” He looked at the floor; it was easier than her eyes. “But I turned you into…this.”

Abigail flinched as she remembered the pain that had shattered her insides. She’d been shot in the back. Panic pounded through her body as she noticed the blooms of dark crimson, which stained the front of her shirt, coated her hands and blackened her fingernails. She pulled up her shirt, searching for wounds, and then reached back with her fingers in an awkward search for any sign of puncture.

“You’re all healed,” John said.

Suddenly, Abigail became conscious of her exposed flesh, pulled her shirt down, and glanced down at the ground.

“I am so sorry,” John said, “it was the only thing I could do to save you.”

“So, I’m a vampire now?” she asked.

John turned to Larry, who now stood next to John, for an answer.

“In short, yes,” Larry fixed his stare on Abigail, “You will likely have the same abilities and same weaknesses.”

“You mean,” she flicked her eyes at Lydia, “I’ll have to do that again?”

Larry looked down and pursed his lips. His chest surrendered into a sigh, “I’m afraid so.”

Abigail shook her head, slowly at first, then furiously from side to side.

“No, no, no! I can’t do that again!”

Her knees hit the concrete. Tears were only seconds behind.

John knelt beside her. He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close. She flinched at first, then realized his touch was no longer a danger to her. They were, after all, now the same. A small wave of soothing relief fluttered through her body and caused her to shudder.

She was finally able to root into the embrace of her angel. So strong, so comforting. The opposite of every other touch she’d experienced in her recent history.

Abigail continued to cry.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispered into her ear, brushing the damp hair from her face. “I’m here for you.”

She thought he might also be crying, but couldn’t bear to look up. She nuzzled her head into his chest and allowed the tears to flow as she pondered a future of killing to survive. Then, she thought of the sun she would never see again. The only sun she’d seen in years was the waning sunshine the evening before. Now she’d never see it again. For some reason she couldn’t understand, this made her cry more than the thought of killing more people.

They embraced for an eternity until Larry’s shuffling and pacing drew their attention.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

John pulled away and looked down at Abigail. His eyes were wet, she noticed. He had been crying. For a moment, their eyes locked, exchanging some unspoken truth between them, something she could not yet give voice to, perhaps a kinship in their curses.

“Okay,” John said, turning to Larry, “we’ll get in the back. Let‘s find that safe house.”

Larry took a moment to say his goodbyes to Lydia, or what was left of her, and Abigail felt a sting in her heart as she watched him kneel beside her.

Abigail crawled into the back of the van and quickly fell to sleep, swaddled in the strength of John’s arms.

_________

As John slowly drifted to sleep, he thought about the look in Abigail’s eyes right before they crawled into the van. There was something there, something that whispered only to him. Perhaps it was the incredible sadness within them, he thought. But John knew better. Two had become one. His darkness had swallowed her light, like cancer that spreads through the body.
He grieved for her loss. All he could do now was be there to help her. But, he wondered, how could he help her when so much of his life remained a mystery?

His mind dwelled on the missing pieces of the puzzle that was his past. Who was he? How many people had he left dead in his wake? Why did he choose to have his mind erased? What was he running from? Who was the bald man who sought to capture him? What secrets did he harbor that so many people were willing to murder to get?

Where was Hope?

Too much to contemplate, he felt his mind would soon crack beneath the pressure. Then, as he slept, something clicked inside the vault that kept his memories.

John remembered.

PART TWO: INTO THE PAST

October 2, 1999
St. Augustine, Florida

John woke from a nightmare, shivering. His sopping shirt sticking to his chest, again.

He’d had the same dream for nearly two weeks, now. In the dreams, he had returned to his killing. The monster within him, the one he’d taken so many measures to bury, had clawed its way to the surface.

Not again.

He rolled across the empty bed to see the soft blue neon face of his alarm clock. 2:07 a.m.

Where’s Hope?

He slid from bed, the cold hardwood floor greeting his bare feet like a splash of water. For the hundredth time, if not the thousandth, he reminded himself that he really needed to get a good pair of slippers.

He opened the bedroom door. The hallway was dark, save for a sliver of light bleeding from beneath the door to Hope’s studio.

She’d also been unable to sleep recently. He wondered if she was having some sort of reaction to his nightmares. Or perhaps it was just the artist in her, demanding its muse to be fed out at odd hours.

He opened her door slowly, not wanting to surprise her in mid stroke. She wasn’t painting though. She was sitting on the floor, face in her hands, and crying.

“What’s wrong, honey?” he said, quickly falling next to her and wrapping an arm around her.

Her cry grew more intense as she hugged him tightly.

“What is it?” he asked.

He looked around the studio for the source of her tears. While the studio was well stocked (or cluttered, in his words) with paintings, blank canvases and a small store’s worth of art supplies, it had no TV or radio or even a phone, which ruled out a sad song, TV show or phone call heralding bad news. Hope liked to work in solitude. Whatever the source of her tears was something she’d been holding inside for some time.

Finally, she spoke, through a snort, “It’s silly.”

“No, tell me,” John said, his hand stroking her hair and down her back. She was wearing one of his shirts, a blue and yellow Wolverines tee.

“It’s the painting,” she said.

“What?”

She pointed towards the window, where one of her two in-progress paintings stood on an easel. He couldn’t see what the painting was. It was facing the large picture window, which overlooked a scenic lake. For all its beauty, the shimmering pool had never been a source for one of Hope’s paintings.

“I don’t know,” Hope said, “It’s not like anything I’ve ever painted before. And for some reason, as I was painting it tonight, I just became overwhelmed with sadness.”

“A painting?” John asked, wanting to laugh, but not wanting to offend her in a moment of genuine pain.

He stood up and approached the window. One painting was an apple orchard at midnight, which she’d started seven months before but had yet to finish.

The other, the inspiration for her tears, was unlike anything he’d ever seen her create before. It was almost surreal in its nature. The painting was of a nude man with long dark hair, who looked a bit like John. He seemed to be floating against a dark violet background of churning storm clouds. His hands were outstretched, red rings of something spinning around them.

And he was suspended by two incredinbly large white angel’s wings.
TO BE CONTINUED…

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