Cold Dead Past (23 page)

Frank side-stepped and Jay went sprawling on the ice.  As he crawled to his knees, he could feel the ice roll under him.

Frank offered Jay his hand.  "Just come with me now.  It could be really beautiful."  His eyes softened and appeared to be a cloudy blue as the light of the moon hit just the slightest hints of tears.  "Please... Jay."

Jay was leaning back, looking up at Frank like a mantis waiting to spring, when it finally occurred to him what he had to do. 

"I can’t," he said. "I’m with Meg now and nothing is going to change that.  You were my best friend, but I'm not going to give up what I have now for something that disappeared fifteen years ago."

Frank shook his head and stomped his foot. "No!"

The ice cracked. Jay eyed the spear, just out of reach, as he ranted on.

"But I did all this for you!"

Frank looked down at his feet, dejected, then turned away.

"This isn't for nothing," he continued. "You don't mean what you said. I did things.  It isn't supposed to be this way."

He stamped his foot again, like a petulant child. Jay could feel the water surging up from the opening beneath him as it widened.  He scrabbled at the ice with his finger tips as he pulled himself onto the side closest to Frank, inching closer to the spear.

In that moment, Frank’s smile changed to a look of rage and his eyes became cold, dead marbles.

"It’s that bitch," he yelled. "I knew it!  I should have just killed her when I had the chance.  Then you would have been mine.  All for me."

Jay sprang toward the spear.  The ice gave way under him just as he closed his fingers around it and he found himself immersed in the frigid water.  Frank's anger changed to surprise as he lost his balance and slid into the black water right behind him. 

Once Jay had gotten over the initial shock of the cold, he could feel his muscles begin to cramp.  It would only be a short time before his hands and legs turned blue, numb, and worthless.  He tried kicking to the surface and was suddenly jerked back.  He could feel Frank's hand around his ankle, tight as a vise.

Jay kicked hard, trying to break loose, but when he did it was as if he were tangled in a steel coil that knotted itself tighter with each attempt.  He could feel his lungs, about to burst, filled with pain.  He knew that if he were going to get out of this live, he had to keep his wits about him and not panic.  The first thing that came to his mind as his feet touched the soft bottom of the pond was that he still had the spear in his hand.  He jabbed blindly with it, scraping his ankle before hitting home.  Frank's grip loosened just long enough for Jay to pull himself free.

He broke the surface, steam rising off his body from the exertion in the cold night, and took a great gulp of air. Jay scraped his fingertips raw trying to get a grip on the slick surface of the ice. Frank grabbed hold of him once again and dragged him down.

There was no way he could use the spear as a club. The only way to get into position to use it in the prescribed manner was to just give up and allow Frank to have his way, taking him to the bottom.  He wasn’t sure if he could do it.  His lungs ached as the two of them slipped deeper.

When they touched bottom once again, he could feel Frank’s hands coming to rest on his shoulders.  If there were ever a time to do what had to be done, it was then.  Jay gripped the shaft of the spear tightly, near the center, feeling the balance of it for an instant. As Frank pulled him closer, he raised it to his chest. As their lips touched, Jay thrust the spear forward.

Jay was a lucky man. His blind attempt struck true, just at the base of the sternum and angling up into Frank's chest.  Time stopped as a green glow suffused the water.

Thick, black bile poured from Frank's wound. Then Jay looked into his eyes. They were the deep blue he remembered.  The anger and hatred had drained from his face to be replaced by a smile.

Frank nodded his head and lifted his hands from Jay’s shoulders, releasing him.  He kicked away and just before he reached the surface, he looked back.  He could see Frank there, the glow encasing his body and growing brighter.

He broke out of the water once again, gulping in breaths and feeling a burning in his lungs as the freezing air rushed into them.  Once he was able to get his bearings, he paddled over to the edge of the ice and heaved himself up onto it.  He laid there for a moment, breathing hard, the hair on his head beginning to freeze, looking around to get his bearings.

He began crawling away from the edge and back toward the house.  He had been lucky in the direction he had chosen when he had reached the surface.  If he had swum in the other direction, he would have faced a long trip around the pond in the freezing gloom.  The line of flags had disappeared, so he had to use dead reckoning to figure out just when he had made it back onto ice thick enough to support him on foot.

Jay had risen to his knees when there was a sudden blinding flash in the direction from which he had come, followed by a loud crash.  He was thrown down, smacking his face hard against the ice.  When he sat up and looked to see what had happened, he saw Frank, on his back on the ice, bathed in that glow, the spear still lodged in his chest.

Jay heard a plaintive call.

"Please."

Meg had seen the light from her vantage point on the shore and ran up to his side.  She knelt down beside Jay and wrapped him up in her coat.  As she held him close, he basked in her warmth and the love it represented.

Frank rose to his feet and approached them, his arms stretched out to his sides.  As he got closer, it became clear that he was no longer the bloodthirsty creature that they had come to know and fear.  The vileness, corruption, the accumulated years of jealousy and anger seemed to melt away.   What they saw, finally, just a few feet away, was a boy, dressed for play in his stocking cap and corduroy coat.

Frank’s arms dropped to his side.

"Thanks, buddy," he said. "I don’t have much time, but now you know.  I didn’t want to leave that way.  Leave without knowing."

Frank smiled once again. Jay nodded and returned it with a smile of his own.  Then Frank grasped the spear in his hands.  As he did, a bolt like lightning shot out from it’s tip into the sky.  A beam of light emanated from the wound, growing larger with each second.  Soon there was no more Frank, just a pillar of light that was so bright that Meg and Jay had to shield their eyes.  It flowed toward them until it was a great ball, just inches from Jay’s face.

There was no heat.  It was a cool light.  But Jay could feel the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. When he hesitantly reached out with the palm of his hand, there was an arc of little blue sparks.

"I release you," Jay said.

 
The sparks shot up into the sky, a buzzing swarm of fireflies.  The two of them watched the spectacle until it disappeared, swallowed up by the night.  When it was over, Meg turned to Jay.

"What was it all about, Jay? In the end, what did he want so much?"

 
Jay thought for a moment before he answered.  He pulled Meg close.  He held her tight, so tight she thought she would break, and then he kissed her.

"What you’ve given to me.  A second chance."

                                                                      THE END