A Vulnerable Broken Mind (18 page)

              John sat on the bed. He took her in his arms. Blood was now pouring onto him from her chest. John tried to think of anything he could do to save her.

              He stared into her eyes, which were slowly fading away from him. She looked at him but with a very glazed stare.

              “Stay with me,” he shouted, trying to keep her alive, his hands drenched in her blood. The warmth of her blood was a contrasting feeling as her body became cold.

              “I love you,” she replied back, having lost all hope.

              “I love you too but…but.” As John began to break down, so did his conscience and his soul as Amber’s eyes closed and her body went lifeless in his arms.

              John couldn’t move. He remained on the bed and clutched Amber in his arms, as if she would open her eyes somehow if he did.

              He then lifted his head up and surveyed the scene around him. He looked at the lifeless body of Ken Sparks slumped in the doorway and looked out into the hallway, knowing that out of sight and in the corner was the body of Ralph Hunt.

              All of this was meant to save his one and only love. Despite all of his strength and effort, she lay dead in his arms. Everything he had gone through led him to an ultimate failure.

              He had never felt so hopeless and meaningless in his life. What was his reason for living now? He knew the answer before even asking the question. He looked over to the side of the bed, to where he had thrown the gun.

              He set Amber’s body gently back on the bed and shut her eyes. His clothes and hands were now drenched and dripping with her blood.

              He climbed off of the bed and walked to where the gun had landed. There was no reluctance or even the slightest bit of hesitation as he walked back to the bed, with the gun now firmly planted in his hand.

              Before walking to the bed, he looked over to the nightstand. Two items sat on the nightstand next to the bed. John looked very closely at them, not able to take his eyes off them. Amber’s and his wedding ring were sitting on the nightstand. He grabbed both of them and held them in his other hand as he walked back to the bed.

              Once back to the bed, he stared at Amber’s body. He ignored the bullet hole in her chest and all of the blood that now painted her and the white bed red. His only focus was on her beautiful face. With her eyes closed and with John focusing on nothing else but that, it appeared that she was only sleeping.

              John wanted to sleep with her as well. He crawled into the bed. He could feel the dampness of Amber’s blood.

              He scooted closer to Amber and grabbed onto her hand. He looked over to her and stared at her.

             
“Until death do you part?”
But who said that love had to stop at death? Can you not love someone for all eternity? Why can’t love go on beyond the grave?

              “Now, we’ll be together always,” John said as he raised the gun up to his head. He didn’t take his eyes off of her as he did it. He held the gun to the side of his head. There was no hesitation or regret as he pulled the trigger.

BAM!

              The loud and intense gunshot screamed in his ear as he journeyed into the real abyss. While he would never be able to turn back or change his decision, his conscience and his soul would never want to.

Epilogue

              Tom Morrison had grown tired of waiting and would go back to the house himself. He would discover the bodies nearly thirty minutes after John’s fatal decision.

              After calling the police, he would search the house himself before their arrival, discovering two other wedding rings in the bedroom across from where Amber was located; the two wedding rings that had belonged to Tony and Mary Stanton.

              Morrison had seen the wedding rings before when first meeting them. Not wanting the police to take them as evidence, he put them in his pocket and quickly walked back outside as the sound of the approaching police boats were heard.

              He flagged them down and, after an extensive search from the police, all bodies were taken from the site.

Morrison would return to Tuxton and would promptly return Mary her wedding rings, proving that, despite John’s decision, he had lived up to his word. Mary was now free.

Ken Sparks and Ralph Hunt were buried in private. Their story however, spread across the entire country. Their reputations were posthumously destroyed in a New York minute. Hunts house would be demolished and the cells filled with concrete a week later.

              John and Amber would be flown back to Clinton, New York. John’s story had labeled him as a hero for the deaths of two murderers. He and Amber would be buried side-by-side, with their tombstone reading “Always & Forever”.