Murderous intent

The bright lights were being shined directly into my eyes. I didn’t know where I was. I was lying down, but I felt like I was moving, moving quickly. I felt it as what I was lying on collided with something hard, but instead of crashing I moved through it. People were all around me talking fast, I heard my Tara screaming, she was screaming uncontrollably. I wanted to tell her I was sorry, not sorry for how things turned out, but sorry for how it made her feel, all I had put her through. At least I hadn’t gone through with it on my own, it had been serendipity, a fortunate accident, and she would never have to know it had been what I wanted. I looked up at the white ceilings and the faces. I realized I was at the hospital; the people surrounding me were doctors. There images slowly faded and white stars swam across my vision, if this were the afterlife it wasn’t so bad, at least I couldn’t be held responsible anymore. A slow beep stole my attention and something was shoved onto my face blowing warm air at me. Slowly I faded out the sounds of my mother screaming, the people talking, whatever was beeping. I slowly let the darkness that was threatening my vision take hold, and suddenly my world was black.

I awoke to voices, both I recognized, Dr. Jamison’s and my mom’s. They were talking in hushed voices. I opened my eyes slightly to see Dr. Jamison shaking his head at my mother; even in the dark of the room I could see his face was a pale white and my mother’s shoulders shook. “He shouldn’t be alive, Tara, we both know it.” He was hissing angrily,”  “but you saved him, it was a miracle,” my mother sobbed even harder. She looked so miserable, her mousy brown hair put up in her usual disheveled bun, forever in her nurses’ smock. “For christsakes Tara, fell seventy feet; he was under water for an hour, an hour!!!!! We have to call someone or something, this just isn’t natural.”

He said feverishly, he started pacing as my mother sobbed. I looked up to examine myself in the steel pole on the side of my hospital bed, I discovered my arm was in a sling and I felt like I had been hit by truck, but the way I looked would have suggested I had fallen out of a tree. With the exception of a few bandages on my head and a broken left arm, which actually felt pretty good, I was in excellent shape. Several thoughts ran through my head, I understood where Dr. Jamison was coming from, I was alive, and no way should I have lived. I racked my brains for an answer, was I delusion? Did the man push me out of the way at the last second only to fall to the river below anyway? Or was it one of those freak accidents that people walkway without a scratch, divine intervention or some crap. I tried to lean forward and sit up, but found I could only sit up a few inches. I fell back down and looked around the room to try and find a clock; I saw my mother walk over and collapse into a chair across the room. The sky was dark outside and the only light was coming in through the glass in the door. I had no idea how long I had been out, I thought maybe a day at least. I lay there for well over an hour. I started to get a little scared, why I had lived was still running through my head, which was pounding. My thoughts were interrupted when someone came into the room, it was a nurse, she walked over to my monitors and checked them, I looked up at her and she not expecting me to be awake shrank back. “Um, um, sir you need to relax, your heart rates going up.” She said. She was young, probably early twenties, short with short dark hair. I just looked away; it was kind of hard to relax when something like this was happening. She whispered softly so she wouldn’t wake my mother that “this will help you sleep.” As soon as she walked out of the room I began to feel drowsy, I tried to stay awake, how long had I been here sleeping, it could have been days, I put up a feeble fight before finally giving in and falling asleep.  I found comfort in the familiarity of my dream, the path, the sounds, and the man at the end. I was nearly halfway through the dream when a sound from across the room woke me. Groggily I slowly opened my eyes, and looked across the room at my mother, but found an otherwise empty chair, despite the blanket left on the seat. I tried again to sit up and found I could, I flexed my legs and moved my arms, and I took my arm out of the sling and attempted to stretch it. I found I could stretch it out completely, but how? My arm was broken a few hours ago; it felt okay but definitely broken. A sound in the hall caught my attention; it was probably my mom getting something from the vending machine, I had no idea what to say to her. She was probably confused about everything, the man in the woods had probably told her everything, and she was probably wondering why I had tried to kill myself and why I didn’t move when I had the chance. I couldn’t talk to her, it wasn’t her fault, but she would blame herself, she always blamed herself. When my dad left she blamed herself, and when grandma died she blamed herself. I should’ve written a note or something. I swung my legs across the bed and unhooked everything I was plugged up too. I shut off the heart machine so it wouldn’t flat line and cause an alarm. I put my palms to my forehead, I wonder if there was such a thing as your head splitting in two. When I was little we moved in with my grandma after dad left, grandma use to take me to church, and one service I remember the pastor saying when it was your time to die it would happen. I guess all that bull was true when it was your time it was really your time and nothing you did edgewise could change it. I sat up and looked around, my room had a bathroom, and I must have been moved to a long term patient room. I walked toward the bathroom to splash a little water on my face; I closed the door halfway behind me. I turned on the sink and started to remove the bandages on my face, nothing could prepare me for what I saw. There was nothing, not a scratch, a scar, not even a blemish or bruise. I rubbed my eyes, I had to have been in a coma or something, yeah that’s right, I must have been asleep for a month or something, it could happen right, that would explain how my arm was healed, the bruises, how good I felt. I steady my breathing and turned off the sink. The door to my room clicked open and shut, my mom must have returned. I straightened my hair and stood up; my Tara would be excited after all this time me being asleep. I opened the door slowly and took one more steadying breath before swinging it completely open. It was pitch black in my room, the lights in the hall had been turned out, which was a little strange. I sat for a minute waiting for my eyes to adjust; I could just make out the outline of a figure sitting on my bed. My Tara must have lain down on the bed. I walked toward her, but a flicker of movement in corner of my room caught my eye, it was a shadow, tall, and dark. My hand went to my mouth to muffle my scream. “No!” I stared breathlessly; it was too dark to look in its eyes to discover her fate. My mom sat up on the bed. “Tara, turn on the lights now!!!” I stepped forward a little too hastily, and slipped on to my back. The lights flew on, and I quickly sat up and looked toward the shadow, but I found it wasn’t a shadow, but a man. I recognized him from the school parking lot, the one with the blond hair, and dark blue eyes. He was sitting by the door leaning casually against it. I turned to the bed and found another man; he could have been in his early thirties, very tan, with dark eyes and hair, a very sharp jaw line and a slight goatee that traced. My heart began to race, the man on the bed got up and walked toward me, and I pulled myself back by my elbows, but hit the hall. I covered my face with my hands; the man grabbed me by my hair and jerked my face upwards. “Who is it, Blake?” he spoke, with what could have been a French or Italian accent. The man called Blake threw me a glance and scratched his jaw, “could be Price or maybe Wesley.” He replied with a sort of nonchalant tone in his voice. The man turned to me and looked me in the eyes, “What’s your name boy.” He spat, I struggled to get away from him, but he jerked me forward even more, “My names is Will, Will Haven.” I managed to stutter. Blake looked at him and rolled his eyes, “Dominic this is a waste of valuable time, and he obviously doesn’t remember anything.” Blake stated, Dominic grumbled and released me, he looked at me and a slow grin spread across his face. “Blake you left before the others right.” Blake nodded, “Well what if he knows more about them, he could find them and make your job a hell of lot easier.” Blake groaned. Dominic turned to me and stared, this is for your own good Mr. Haven, he pulled a needle from his jacket pocket and jammed it into my neck before I could he even gasp. My world went fuzzy and although I didn’t black out entirely I was just as useless as if I had. Dominic picked me up and in one swift motion placed my body over his shoulders; he carried me out the door effortlessly, stepping silently on the linoleum floor. Without making a sound, he managed to get down the hallway of the hospital and walk out the front door. Not like I expected there to be any type of security in the hospital, but I thought that maybe someone would be awake at whatever time of night it was. I could make out a car out front, some type of SUV, it was painted a dark black or possibly blue. He tossed me in the backseat as if I were a ball being passed along through the air. The driver sped off as soon as Dominic got into the car, and right before I passed out I could make out the clock on the dash, it was five minutes pass three in the morning.    

 I opened my eyes slowly, but didn’t move the car was still dark so I figured I hadn’t been out long. We were still speeding along on the road; I shifted a little on the seat so I could look up at the men who had taken me. I looked out the front window and saw the sun, or at least it looked like the sun, the car was so dark it could still be night, but I could make out the sun in the distance. The car must have had a serious tint job done for it to be this dark in the car.

The car was large, not one you’d think people who made their living on being inconspicuous would own. I just sat and waited, not scared just worried, I would have to explain to them I wasn’t an important person, I went to a public school, and lived in a small apartment with my mom who worked as a nurse’s assistant, but whoever Price or Wesley was they must have been somebody important or wealthy for them to want to risk so much in getting him. It would all be cleared up when they realized that.