03:00 ~ The Struggle

a. 03:00

    James heard the commotion from the ball-room, where he had remained, in a heap, since the awful news was announced. A group of kind Bohemians had lifted him from the floor and transported him to the chairs around the edge. He had sat, paralyzed, for a while, collecting what thoughts he could, but it was no use - he knew who was responsible for this heinous crime.
    He vomited. He made the effort to run to the bathroom, but had only made it through the door when he emptied. The brightness of the white tiles made his head ache, even when he shut his eyes. He started to bake. He collapsed onto the floor.

    Whilst Gast had made some attempt to track the two young lovers who had fled the house, Jerry had remained at his table in the pink bedroom. Fin had marched out in absolute rage, clinging to his wound.  Slightly amused by the recent events, Jerry giggled. He rose from the padded seat and glided back out of the door like nothing had happened. He walked along the landing, all the way around, until he ended up back in the same spot, at the top of the stairs. This spot, where he had descended from earlier, was now tainted. It became a black hole in the carpet into which he wouldn’t mind being sucked.
    Jerry attempted to descend in the same fashion as he had done earlier, but nothing now was right. He felt clumsy. The dress was tear stained. The crowd was elsewhere.
    It was then that Jerry noticed. The crowd. They were all swarmed around the bathroom door. Out of them, someone was dragging a body along the floor. Like a stillborn from a hundred vultures. When Jerry saw the face, he ran in his heels toward the floor. James needed his help.
    ‘What’s happened?’ He demanded to know.
    ‘We found him lying there on the tiles. He must have fainted. He can’t really be taking this very well.’
    ‘No. I understand,’ he hesitated. ‘Well, get me some water then. Somebody. Quickly.’ He turned then to the vacant face of James. ‘I’m going to take care of you.’

    James came to. In front of him was Jerry. He had taken on a paler complexion than the one he had been wearing the rest of the evening.
    As he sat up, Jerry became aware of his apparent consciousness and moved from his sitting position to aid him. James felt uncomfortable, and even more so when Jerry’s hand was behind his head, helping him position himself.
    Now fully awake, James was looking at his shoes. The memory of what had happened hit him suddenly then. Again his look turned to Jerry for confirmation that this was not simply one of those dreams. The pale face was full of remorse. No. It was all real.
    He decided that now that he found his consciousness, he wouldn’t loose it again in that swelling pit of sorrow into which he had fallen, out there on the dance floor.

    The two of them were alone in the study, the room where The Detective had pitched his tent for the evening. The Detective was not there.
    ‘Where’s Detective Gast disappeared to then?’ asked James to Jerry.
    ‘I’m not sure. I think he’s gone out in pursuit of Mina and that young f**k she brought back with her.’
    There was a pause of seconds where both men remembered when they had found each other. Running and hiding was the norm back then, as was being pursued by the police. The memory of wildness threw itself back over James like heat in a jungle. Jerry always was the snake.
    ‘Well, this is surprising. Back when we were together it would have been me where you are now. You would have been the one passing out at the party,’ James commented, with tones of love and masochism. ‘I used to be so frightened. I thought you’d never be able to make it out at times. I thought you would leave me in the jungle all alone.’
    Jerry smiled, then put forward an answer to the statement. ‘Yeah. At times I thought I was stuck there too.’ He paused, thinking carefully about how to approach the next part. ‘I’m sorry Jimmy. Sorry for everything. I’m sorry I did this now and I’m sorry for what I did to you in the past. I’m sorry that Michael is gone. I’m sorry that I can’t bring him back for you. You never deserved any of this.’

    In the barn, Alex lay next to Mina. The candles around them formed an orange glow. They had been re-lit by Mina, who had thought it best to utilize the barn in some way tonight, after her and Fin had only managed to make it halfway to it before sexual urge had set in.
    Their bodies intertwined as they slept. Going back to the campsite had not been an option. The Detective would surely be able to trace Alex back there, and neither of them wanted to be involved with this awful Halloween story.
    Alex was deep within his head, reliving the sex. His dreams were pleasurable and rich. They layered around him and protected him from consciousness, for now.

b. 03:20

    James led Jerry into the garden. Arm in arm they strolled and remembered their history. They drifted past the lawn and onto the stone patio. The mosses rolled and squeezed beneath their feet as the patio gave way to the water feature. They had escaped the house not through the police guarded front door, but through the window of the study. Their playfulness suprised them both
    They were both now laughing into the night. They were braving the icy temperature which caused steam to expel from their mouths. The blueness of everything around them seem to James to suggest winter. This was the first sign of the approaching season. His thoughts then changed course, returning to Michael.
    James would be alone this Christmas. The season approaching would have belonged to him, Michael, and all other heavenly creatures. The blueness was beginning to hurt, like shards of ice pressing into his eyes. Tears began falling onto his blue cheeks.
    The patio was getting colder as time progressed. The stone was hard even to look at, let alone be walked upon or sat on. James needed to change the setting. He needed to go somewhere covered from the gaze of the stars. Somewhere where the ice couldn’t rain on him. Somewhere where the evil of winter had not fully settled into place. The last remaining leaves of the trees called out to him from over the little wooden bridge over the stream.
    The two set off again.

    The covering of Alex’s head began to slip. Quite rapidly, his dreams turned into nightmares. The woman riding and writhing above him began to feel different. The warmth of her inside was beginning to turn cold. It was no longer the sanctuary it was, but an igloo. Her face was changing. Her pleasing and gratifying expressions were melting away. Beneath the skin, to his horror, there lay another face, grinning maniacally and looking straight through his chest.
    To the floating Alex’s disbelief, the boy forced himself forward with the act. Pushing upward and clenching, all the while being drained of his own energy and warmth. The face beamed, darkly, on.
    The smiling creature’s nails now commenced their attack on his belly and sides. In sharp strokes, the nails tortured him. From his navel and up to his chest and neck, then forcing his arms apart into stigmata.
    The outer body consciousness looked on in horror as the boy on the bed screamed in pain, producing pitches that he was unaware he was capable of producing. He also watched himself part his legs and dig his feet into the sides of the bed in order to maintain some kind of grip.
    His buttocks clenched and he used his new found foot-holds to heave his pelvis and penis. Neither party would back down from this.
    The inside of what once was a woman turned again. Alex felt this change as a series of pin pricks around the skin at the head of his shaft. He felt a pleasure that he had not done so previously. It was now his inside that was being sucked.
    He sighed like a newborn as this new infinitely large, yet tiny feeling consumed him. He was frozen, disabled temporarily, like a shark when its nose has been touched.
    The spectator Alex saw the floor around the bedposts melt. It turned to red as the bed started to sink into it. The frozen Alex pushed his head backwards as the pleasure and pain had its exploration of him, leaving his neck open and his Adam’s-apple protruding. The creature bent down and licked this lump as the bed sank into the blood, which flooded their figures.
    Alex was one again now. In the bed. Fighting the feeling. Not moving, fighting, losing. The creature disappeared as soon as the blood made contact with it, leaving Alex still fixed in his position. Nothing could be done. The hot substance was around his feet as it came over the sides of the mattress, then around his cheeks and in between, his balls, up his sides, across his shoulders, chest belly, up his freestanding shaft and its delicate tip, his hands and knees, and finally, his face.

    Alex woke.

c. 03:40

    James couldn’t shift the winter from his mind. He and Jerry had made their way along the stream they had crossed, just under the trees at the beginning of the forest, to the opening of the lake. The pathway wasn't very well trodden and therefore exciting.
    The pair were still side by side and stared out across the vast expanse of H2O.
    ‘You know. I’m still very sorry about Michael. I feel like this was all somehow my fault,’ Jerry ventured.
    ‘That’s okay Jerry. It’s all going to be alright.’ This wasn’t actually what James thought, but he said it anyway.
    Since they had crossed the bridge, James had doubted every thought he had. Now, looking at the water of the lake, so calm and sure, he knew what had to be done.
    ‘I’m sorry Jerry.’
    Jerry turned, ‘Sorry? For what?’
    The motions that followed were incredibly swift and equally insane.
    James took hold of the golden sash on Jerry’s dress and, under James’ lead, they plunged into the crude water.
    Jerry tried to swim to the edge, but couldn’t as James was holding onto his tails and ties. The dress wearing host knew he was in danger when he turned in the water to catch a look of extreme seriousness on the face of James. The two were soaking and breathing in the water of the lake.
    ‘What are you doing Jimmy?’ He asked, petrified.
    ‘I’m sorry Jerry, that you had to find out this way.’
    ‘Find what. What the f**k Jimmy?’ He tried to point out the ludicrous position they were in.
    ‘You are a sacrifice. I am a sacrifice!’
    Jerry started to cry. The wet that already lay on his face camouflaged the tears. He knew now there was no chance. He was going to die in this black water.
    ‘We both are. We owe him this much. You do at least - you killed him.’
    Jerry appeared startled by this new accusation. ‘James! I had no part to play in his murder. We have had our differences, but that’s it! Please!’
    ‘You killed him! And now the only way to stop the winter is to sacrifice yourself! You won’t be alone Jerry, I will too. It’s the best way.’
    ‘But -’
    But there was no time. James pulled hard on the ropes, bringing Jerry down beneath the surface with him. Jerry tried to struggle, but the water was too cold and heavy. He gasped occasionally when he reached the surface again but it was useless. He couldn’t undo the ropes either. If he did, James would only be left with something with which to trap him and pull him. Jerry kicked in his weighty shoes, which only seemed to push him deeper.
    He lost consciousness under there. Before he did, he managed to capture one last look of his true love, James, whose eyes had now rolled back in his head. The grip of the dead was now stronger than ever. Jerry didn’t care for escaping quite that much.
    The two ex lovers, James and Jerry, were now beneath the surface.

    Alex had been walking for about five minutes when he heard the splash. A series of smaller splashes followed.
    After his dream, he had to get away from Mina. She had not been startled from her own dream by Alex’s sudden exit from his own.  He left her there, feeling that he could gain better perspective without her - isolation was the key, especially after the intimacy of the terrifying nightmare.
    He was wide awake. He felt newborn and wide awake for the first time in this unfamiliar world of night time. The element of danger was all about, but he could not feel death - death seemed absent. Living was all he could feel at the minute. He didn’t believe in the significance of his dreams. The mind would do what it would, just as though he didn’t concern or confuse his mind with his brain.
    The splashing continued, it came only through a couple of bushes that he could have walked through if he indeed wanted to. From what he saw on the other side, he discovered, he had no wish to cross through. For this he would simply be the voyeur.
    There was a lake - perfectly still, except for violent ripples originating from two struggling bodies in the water. He thought he had seen this before when fish mated, only they were meant to exist in the water. One of the bodies he recognized as the flamboyant host of the house party. He had seen him just an hour ago, when Mina had spoken to him in the bedroom. Now he was dying, drowning.
    Alex was wide awake and jittery, but for this he kept still. Privacy, he felt, was required here. Not interference. He would not interfere. Alex stood cold and awake, shaking, digesting this sight. The only way to block out the feelings of dread was to close his eyes. He wouldn’t even scream ‘stop!’ But how he wanted to, how he wished it would cease.
    He buttoned his eyelids to his shivering eyeballs. He expected to be able to continue to see right through them like glass, but thankfully, he did not.
    After a count of ten, the splashing sound finished it’s atonal piece and the sounds of nature resumed their noisy silence. In the lake, the ripples remained, spreading out from an unknown source. Circles around a murder scene - and a suicide. A black spot, imprinted on the water then Alex’s brain. He turned back and began to sprint for the barn. He imagined that many children had also done this in the past, however, never under these circumstances. He had to get Mina. They had to leave. Now.

    At the front of the house, a student’s car pulled up. Inside was Jamie. She was jerky and hasty in her actions. Her mascara outlined the blobby shapes of tears cried on this night. She had the address where the parents were staying. She had to tell them. She had to find out why the children had been taken - surely they would know this.
    What had happened, she felt, was somehow her fault and she had to tell them this. This, and that she would return the children no matter what.
    This was not the only reason. She knew he was here. Mr Gast. She had to tell him too, help him if she could. The Detective’s kind wife had saved her and she had to do the same. She had to give him the descriptions of the men. She had tried explaining this back at the station hours ago, but to no avail.
    She had to have her own personal revenge on them. The two who had done this to her and were clearly in the same league. All of these things she had made a mental note of. All of these things she would accomplish before the day came. Somehow, she felt, after then it would be too late. She had about six hours left. She looked at her wrist. 03:56.
    She jerked the car to a halt and immediately got. The car door slammed behind her and she darted straight for the oak door. On it, she banged hard until someone began to twist the keys on the inside. It moved on its hinges slowly, revealing a cautious man in a police uniform.
    ‘Hello. I’m sergeant Allan Riley,’ said the friendly policeman. He examined her scruffy appearance and frazzled manner. ‘Can I help you Miss?’