HAUNTING STURGEONS: Chapter Twenty-Six

Previously in this blog serial...

(Click here to read Chapter Twenty-Five) 

Now the HAUNTING continues...

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    I am gazing into the crisp morning sky.  An endless electric blue unfolds before my eyes as silence fills my ears.  I want to lose myself in this color, dissolve into its tranquility.  Create a world apart from the one I know, apart from the last ten years.  A world where  Sturgeons was never destroyed, where my family exists in a perfect moment. 

    My parents are standing together on our old front porch, healthy and fully aware.  They look at us with such happiness, so proud of their sons.  Tommy is alive, ten years older, but still youthful.  He is standing with Tracy at his side, each with an arm around the other.  I am standing with all of them, but I am not alone.  Eddie steps up from behind, wrapping me in a warm, comforting embrace.  

    Like my mother, I could stay in this fantasy forever, forgetting everything else.  Forget the shadow of Stickler Hill and what brought me here.  Forget the echoing thunder of a gunshot and what it means.  It would be so easy, but I can’t ignore what’s happening.  A steady voice suddenly calling out.  A warm dampness spreading over me.  A weight being removed from my body.  

    I lift my head, blue turning to a dark pool of red.  There is no fleeting moment of panic.  No frantic search for a wound.  I am strangely calm, even as I notice my father’s gun still clutched in my blood-soaked hands.  Releasing the weapon, it slides to the ground as I sit up.  The voice calls out again, strong and clear.

    “Hang in there, help is on the way.”

    Benjamin Straker is kneeling on the ground, wearing a black t-shirt.  His blue flannel is wadded up and pressed against the chest of Clyde Woodhouse.  The injured man is lying on his back, his body convulsing.  I take in the blood he has already lost and I understand.  There is no going back to my perfect fantasy.  No going back to Eddie.  There is only now and what I’ve done. 

    This is not what I want.  For all my resentment and anger, I chose to stop, to not pull the trigger.  What I want to do is say that I’m sorry.  Explain that it was an accident.  Swear that I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I choke with every attempt.  I know anything I say would sound empty and pointless, so it’s for the best.  My words will not take away the bullet or stop the bleeding.  

    Getting to my feet, I watch helplessly at the pain I’ve caused.  Straker’s expression is grave but determined, as if he believes his shirt will be enough to save a life.  I hope it is, but I see Clyde has become pale and motionless, crimson seeping from beneath the blue flannel.  Tears begin to fall from Straker’s eyes and I turn away, looking down at the gun resting in the grass and then at the blood on my hands. 

    My world suddenly contracts and I realize there is no one left.  My mother is lost in her mind, so she’ll never know what happened.  Eddie will certainly be done with me after he hears of this and I can’t trust his dad any longer.  I am alone and there is nothing I can do.  Nothing I can do but wait.  Wait for the authorities to arrive.  Wait to be escorted off Stickler Hill.  Wait for my new reality to begin.  

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The HAUNTING concludes in the…

  

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words! 

Freak Out, 

JLH 

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