Hold the Light (13 page)

"G-Get back."

Randy grabbed the guard's hand before he could draw the baton, "Help me get it out dammit!"

"Get the hell away ..."

Randy's right hand sunk beneath his denim shirt and dug at his skin, busting buttons into the air. Randy held Ken's hand beneath his own and stared into his eyes. The guard's eyes gorged open as Randy, holding Ken's hand to his own chest, forced them both to tear into

Randy's skin. Blood pooled around both their fingernails as flesh tore away. Ken kicked and yelled, but Randy held him closer, hearing and feeling nothing outside his head and chest. Other guards emerged from behind Randy in a gloomy fog of shouts and rifles. Nausea climbed into Ken's throat and his head swam. Randy forced Ken's fingernails deep into his skin until Ken's nails scraped Randy's sternum.

"Help me," Randy pleaded teary eyed as he forced them to curl their fingers around a bloody slice of flesh and tear it off. Ken shuddered and fainted.

Guards tore Randy away and pummeled him senseless, leaving the strip of Randy's flesh in Ken's hand as they carried him away.

Chapter 20

Randy became a violent anomaly. A decision was quickly implemented that sent him to the sanitarium wing of the prison were the nights were coated with screams.

Randy wasted away there. Among the madmen, constant howls drowned his convulsions and screams, as he became lost in his arcane mind. Denial soon followed, leaving him standing next to his bed in a stupor, no longer a threat to himself, just to everyone else. When the hunger pangs were overwhelming and the previous day's rations had already rotted, Randy carefully crammed food past his lips, hoping to swallow enough for him and the gift to live off of. He barely lived.

His eyes had aged beyond his years, but his body had not. Other than his eyes, it appeared that age had abandoned him. The years spent in the sanitarium starved his body of hope and stretched on as one long night. Calluses hardened over his senses and dulled his concerns as he felt none of times effects.

On his last night in the sanitarium, far beyond the telling of time and known only because he was forced into it, Randy felt the first reverberations of life in ages. The air shook painfully in his ears and warmth tickled his flesh.

Then it hit. That was all his warning. His existence, for that was what it was, far from life, shook from its catatonic stupor with a huge explosion that shook the atmosphere and sprinkled dust from the ceiling. The mote sparkled in the moonlight and fell on his hair.

The jarring blast ripped through Randy's wing, tearing off the front of every cell down his block and engulfing the patients. The inferno was instant and surprising. Brick crumbled and wood burned. The few inmates that survived smelled freedom and danced around the conflagration. Panic immediately gripped the sanitarium.

Randy didn't budge an inch during or after the explosion.

Small bursts of flames lit his cold eyes and singed his beard. The heat barreled down his cellblock, devouring everything but never invading his cell. Inmates ran by, pounding on the shattered wall that was left in front of him, until billowing smoke chased them away. The gaping hole before him that used to be his cell door sang to him to run, but his feet wouldn't respond. His escape route was laid out before him, but the chilling wind that flowed through froze him solid and took him to the familiarly haunted destinations he knew all too well.

He was drenched in sweat, the fire ready to burn him alive, while the gift kept him busy elsewhere. Flames salivated at the sight of him and crept into his cell slowly, sending smoke ahead to choke him, but the blue light still needed more time. He stood waiting for it. Burning the top of his ears and singeing his hair, the blaze was ready to devour him when, picked up and pushed from his stupor by all his body's instinct, Randy broke into a sudden sprint as the fire engulfed the entire cell behind him. The hallways crumbled at his feet as he ran. Dark ash flakes snowed from the ceiling and black smoke ballooned, gulping peaceful air into its hungry belly. Patients and orderlies fought among the rubble of the corridors.

A convulsion hit Randy in mid sprint and bounced him off a wall and onto the ground. Dull hums ebbed and flowed in his ears, and his head rang with pain. Disoriented and exhausted he tried to stand, when a massive silence confused him. The anarchy hushed for a moment and swept throughout the sanitarium in a pulse. The calm air was eerie until the surge passed and a huge explosion followed. The world shook and Randy fell back to the floor, rolling limply into a corner at the end of a dead-end hallway. Pushing off the rubble that covered him, he watched the corridor surge brightly with fire, spitting about the hallways, ripping everything apart. A massive fireball bloomed, hurling itself towards Randy like an angry sun broke loose. Heat tickled his skin yet again as the fire pulsed closer. Randy sat immobile. The blaze raged even closer and Randy's body grew cold, deathly frozen, as a chilling breeze passed below his skin. The gift inside him began to stir yet again, blowing frigid gusts about his innards. Then the fire and Randy met. The lapping flames bit at his nose until the blaze suddenly lurched back and disappeared, leaving the complex dead and silent.

What was left of the water-damaged walls was scoured black. Smoke had choked everything out and found its escape to the sky. The ceiling was blackened hole. He stood alone, between the dark shadows of the rubble and the shine of the full moon, sucking in all the air he could. His lungs were satisfied and he slowly relaxed. The ordeal seemed over until the walls rumbled yet again.

A distant grumble raced closer. The uproar hummed until another flame shrieked over his head and rammed through the wall. The fire punched through the decaying brick like a colossal fist and dissipated after its duty of freeing Randy completely was done.

The fire passed right over Randy, melting some of the hair and skin on his head and arm. Randy ran right out of the hole in the wall. The grass was long and wet on his bare feet - the caress of freedom he hadn't felt in years. But it was a fleeting feeling. Imprisoned or liberated, he would always shoulder an incredible burden that would impede him wherever he went. But he didn't care. He was free to see Betsy.

The night air was cool and wet, gentle on his face and heart, while the moonlight slowly soothed and healed the charred flesh of Randy's face and arms. Randy stood for an hour that felt like another lifetime, in front of the burning asylum, watching from the lawn like a statue in the mist, feeling all the patients' pain from the distance, taking them to their final destination. He convulsed while the rest of the people inside perished.

The gift eventually released Randy as the embers and screams died out. He ran away wildeyed, a slave to his instincts.

Chapter 21

Wandering through backyards and the countryside, he stripped, and he stole clothes off clotheslines, shoes from stoops, and food from whatever garbage or soup kitchen he could find. Hunger sat heavily in his stomach with the gift. The familiar pains in his knee reminded him of old memories as new pains rotted in his chest. A thousand thoughts of surrender plagued his travels, causing him to collapse often into muddy puddles along the dirt roads, but Betsy kept him from staying down. Strangely, the gift always threatened to break Randy, while at the same time aiding him to get to her. It quickly became a helpful parasite, keeping his hopes up, feeding him thoughts of his sister, while it drained him of every ounce of energy.

But Randy never gave up.

He won every fistfight over a dry place to sleep. He had nothing to lose and, in turn, invented a debt to the gift for saving him in every hopeless situation. More often than not, as transients confronted him for whatever reason, his blood froze, and he slid into a convulsion, leaving all his senses and restrictions behind, quickly turning into a wild man ready to kill to win.

Even though Randy's threshold for pain was considerably higher when the blue light helped, he hated every decaying day they spent together. He had broken more men's bones than he could count, let alone shattered their lives with the gift, but hadn't realized that yet. His mind was a testament to ignorance and denial save for hope. Hope Betsy was still alive.

With hope aside, the gift never let Randy travel far in a day, but thankfully, he didn't have far go. He walked every day, east towards Boston, down dirty roads, trudging along in tattered clothes as rocks jabbed the toes protruding from his demolished shoes. For days he walked and all he heard was the gravel beneath his feet and the light inside him. It was maddening. He had felt more sanity inside the institution among the crazy than in the open world. It was so damned loud, always bustling with crunching and greed and hatred and people.

So, when he heard tires crunch the gravel in the distance behind him, Randy naturally thought it was the sound of his own feet. Other noises were the maddening world and bore no attention. But nevertheless the sound perked his ears and dragged him back into the pitiful real world outside his head.

Randy saw that daylight was waning around the shattered dull landscape. A truck punched through the dust behind him. Randy stopped and slowly turned, hopeful to meet someone willing to help, but fearing, as his irrational past broke the surface of the muck it was buried in and warned him the toad man with the shotgun was approaching again.

Randy cracked a smile, half crazed with the possibility of true revenge on that toad and half fearful of the same thing.

The truck barreled down the hill with the last orange light from the sun. With a sudden brake, the tires dug deep into the gravel, sliding to a halt. Dust billowed up from behind and enveloped the truck. Randy's thumb sat listlessly in the air, all his energy stolen by a convulsion that left him motionless. The gift loosened its hold some as the dust cloud dissipated after passing over the truck's hood.

"Need a lift, bub?" The driver asked.

The dust hadn't completely left a clear view, so the driver asked again.

"Hey man, get in," he said.

The air cleared, and Randy stood there convulsing with thumb in the breeze.

"What's da matter with yah?"

The wind rustled Randy's hair and the driver grew irritated.

"Fine then, you sonovabitch," he said and tore off down the road.

Seconds later, Randy awoke with a jolt and watched his ride leave him behind.

"Awh, dammit." Randy shook his head and walked to the tree line of the road, where he scavenged some berries and fruits.

He walked on again, gazing at the soft grass and the dirty families squatting in the fields. At least they had each other making their situation more bearable, even though the fetor of death covered them all. Randy couldn't get away from the sulfur smell, and it was so heavy that Randy thought he was carrying it around with him. Dirt and grime covered the souls of these people that were following rumors of work. And Randy fit right in. His stolen clothes were tattered and torn to rags, and his boots wore down to sandals, though he couldn't complain as the first wet and muggy blossoms of Spring arrived. The rain fell and dispelled the humidity but didn't water the people lying desiccated along the roadside. Never before had Randy seen desolation so vast, even compared to the asylum, and all he could think of was the town square and the decadent folk.

Then, as if he felt every transient's pain at once or relived the shotgun butt to the forehead, Randy's body gave out and fell face first to the soil. He didn't even feel it, but his body, out of sheer habit, forced a few feeble last steps towards the shining horizon. A mountain of weight sat in his head, and he lacked the strength to hold himself up. The ground had his complete and relentless attention.

But a bright beacon glared from over the hill, enough for him to notice without breaking his attention on the soil. At first, it was a small glint, and then it was a quick flash. A splinter of light squeezed from the top of the hill, and powered a deep hope that drove him towards the horizon.

Panting and struggling up the rest of the hill, Randy reached out to grab a hold of the light, but instead crashed to his knees far away from the summit. His left arm kicked out and tried to brace for the fall, but it failed. He rolled onto his shoulder, completely drained of energy. Wheezing in the dry dirt, the world around him spun in a starved blur. His legs kicked. They persisted without his efforts, jerking in instinct, forcing him into a crawl. The gravel road tore into his face and arms, without regard to pain, as he pressed on. Legs slithered, his body inched up the hill, leaving bloody pebbles in his wake, but his feet tired quickly and his muscles strained to work. The road hungrily chomped at his flesh until his wounds were tapped of blood.

Randy, amazed to do so, found himself draped over the crest of the hill. There he could see a blanket of lights. Not sure if he had flipped over onto his back, Randy could see the stars, and he watched them spin around the sky. His legs kicked one last time and pushed him over the hill. He tumbled and twisted forever, rolling towards the bottom.

A wooden fence post stopped Randy's weak bones, and that's where he stayed. People strolled by, noticing his disheveled body, without moving a muscle to help. He gazed up with a gaping mouth and an outstretched hand, trying to utter a plea, but nothing came. His hand clutched at open air, tenderly hoping to connect with a compassionate hand but all he uttered was a stunted breath; it was his last before he passed out alone.

Chapter 22

Randy awoke in a small tin makeshift house. The musk of sweat and tears lined the walls and offended his nose. When he fully awoke, he thought he was in prison again.

"How long have I been..."

"A day."

The voice was sweet. This kind stranger brought him a small tin cup of water and a hunk of bread. By the dullness in her eyes, Randy could tell this food was a generous portion that would leave her hungry. She was as skeletal as the others he had seen on his travels. Her children clung to her with bony arms, cringing away from Randy as he ate their bread. Their young faces looked so weathered. Not a single child laughed or smiled. No playfulness existed, except in her smile. She watched as Randy carefully poured water on his lips, being mindful not to spill. A wet gleam covered her green eyes as he passed half the loaf back to her.