Edge of End (13 page)

“
He was standing there
gawking at me for a bit, he contemplated everything for a moment or
two and let go of the door handle.” Elizabeth was trying to back me
up as she explained the circumstances to Malcolm. She continued,
“At that moment Jonathan realized what the town was like and what
those dogs or whatever you call them were trying to get him to do.
Instead of entering the house he chose to fight.”

She was making me out to be a hero,
but her words couldn’t make me feel better anymore. I finally
understood everything that was going on; I hadn’t been a good man
in my time of living, I had harmed the closest and dearest people
in my life. I had done bad, unthinkable things to people; I might
even have killed people.

My way of life had caused
me to end up spending my time between life and death in this
hellish
town
called ‘Morsfinis’. What did the name mean anyway?

“
Jonathan,” Malcolm’s
voice jolted me back from my thoughts. I inhaled deeply waiting for
him to talk. “What did you see when you stood in front of your
house for the first time?”

I had seen a girl, a little girl
waiting for her father; and then her mother looking down the road
at the place where her husband should appear.

What if that husband and father was
me? What if they had been waiting for me appear?

“
How can I understand
what’s going to lead me out of this town?” I changed the subject
abruptly. Malcolm realized I didn’t want to talk about my visions
anymore. He didn’t urge me on. “You should know, Malcolm. I doubt
I’m the first one who has ever come back from the dead. There must
have been others passing through, just like me, right?”

“
There were indeed,” he
agreed. “I’ve seen several of you.”

“
Did they make it?”
Elizabeth interrupted quickly, her eyes gleaming again. She clung
to the hope of us escaping an endless life in this
town
.

“
Yes,” Malcolm sighed,
taking a little time to answer. “They had a mighty power just like
you do,” he added pointing to me to confirm it. “It helped them
defeat the monsters that lurk in the dark. These people who had the
power, like Jonathan does now, get strong at very quick rates. Very
soon you’ll possess the most unearthly power. You’ll be able to
smash every demon standing in your way.”

“
But why me? What is so
special about me?” As I wondered, the answer fell into my lap.
“It’s because I still haven’t entered my home, right?” Malcolm did
not answer. His silence implied he wanted to hear my opinion. “Both
you and the barwoman were surprised when I said I hadn’t any house
in the town. You both realized that I hadn’t been seduced and lured
into my house by the visions I was having. Am I right?”

“
Of course,” Malcolm
nodded. “When you enter your house you make an unbreakable
connection with it. The house is strong, stronger than any human
soul and it sucks your power, gives you visions and prisons
you.”

Elizabeth lowered her eyes. She surely
went back to her house and relived the uncountable time she had
spent there. Unless me she was now directly connected to her
house.

“
I knew you’d be special,
that you somehow managed to pass by your house regardless of its
attempts to lure you in,” Malcolm was telling. “I knew and I even
helped you.”

“
Helped me? How the fuck
did you help me? You offered me that fuckin’ disgusting, noxious
drink that made me have more visions, visions that I didn’t need to
have.” I was getting hot under the collar, and I could feel my
voice growing in frustration and anger. “You laughed at me. I guess
I was sitting right here the whole time with a completely blank
face. What did you give me, by the way?”

“
I gave you time, you
ungrateful man!” he cried out angrily.

“
Ungrateful? Yes, I’m
ungrateful to the man who got me so drunk I lost my senses. I’m so
ungrateful to the man who left me alone in this place with that
soul-sucking bitch. Hah, you gave me time? Time for what,
exactly?”

“
Time to regain your
power, idiot. If you want to get out of this place, you have to
make a sacrifice. Just a little from your soul won’t destroy it.
You gave it to her, but at the same time you have possessed the
power, which is why you’re sitting here now. Without such power,
you wouldn’t be able to sit right here in front of me now,
understand?”

“
Stop insulting him,”
Elizabeth chimed in, her voice full of accusation and displeasure,
“You poisoned him and now you’re calling him
ungrateful.”

“
Look lady, I poisoned him
to buy more time for him,” Malcolm said discontentedly. “He was
weak when he entered the café, apparent from the outset that if I
allowed him to leave, the dogs would have ripped him apart, either
that or they would have hounded him all the way to his house. He
exhaled deeply trying to calm his voice and looked at me, annoyed,
then spoke again, “As I said before, your power grows, but at that
moment you were too weak. I did you a favor. You could fight the
dogs, but not the monster. I decided to play my role in your
struggle against it.”

Silence fell upon us. Shame washed
over me. I felt ashamed for screaming at him like some crazy
bastard.

Malcolm was right; I was stronger than
I had been in Elizabeth’s house. If I had had the power I had now
back then, I would have surely defeated the monster that was
there.

Malcolm fished out a pack of
cigarettes from his coat pocket and lit one. He placed the pack on
the table indicating to me to help myself. I wanted to smoke, but I
was afraid of ending up in a dream again. Malcolm rocked back on
his chair and intertwined his fingers while the cigarette dangled
from the corner of his mouth. I averted my eyes and peered out the
window again.

“
So, let me get this
right. Only the ones who never entered their houses have the
power?” Elizabeth asked.

“
No. The ones who have
entered will get power too, but they’ll get it much slower,”
Malcolm replied flippantly as the smoke billowed out his nostrils
like a dragon. “Nothing but pain works here properly. Muscles are
in no use here. You know why? Because this isn’t our body, it’s our
soul, so it doesn’t have any muscle,” he grinned slightly smoke
escaping his mouth lazily.

“
How long have you been
here?” Elizabeth asked in astonishment, forgetting that she was
asking him the same question for the second time. “I witnessed your
power when you fought that monster away. You could summon high
wind. Your punch is unusually mighty.”

“
If this makes you
comfortable, then I’ve been here far too long. You see, everyone
who comes here does leave the town in the end. If you don’t make it
back to earth then your body will die one day, and you and your
house will eventually disappear from here. Nobody knows how long it
will take. When a house and its resident disappear, the house next
to it moves into its place automatically. Just so you know, my
house is one of the first ones in the town. Now work out how long
I’ve been stuck here.”

Elizabeth’s mind wandered off, and I
wondered whether she was trying to do the math and figure it all
out.

“
But I think something is
wrong with the real me. Some houses came and passed mine, and then
they disappeared, but mine is stuck at almost the end of the road,”
Malcolm resumed.

“
Malcolm,” I interrupted
gently, much gentler than I had spoken before. With clasped hands,
he looked at me. “Where do the people like me go? How do they find
the way out of town?”

“
It’s easy to find
Jonathan, but it’s difficult to reach. You need to reach the very
end of the road where the light is being emitted from the sky.
That’s your destination and therefore that must be your way out. I
saw the first one like you from the window of my house. To tell the
truth I hung about in my house too long, it had almost reached the
end of the town when I first left it. I needed to gather my
supernatural power and endure the strength that was holding me in
the house. That was the first time I saw the mighty power of those
who didn’t have a house. Jonathan, you need to understand one
thing. You have to deal the town with its residents. There are some
residents who are going to try very hard to stand in your way. They
envy you.”

“
Why? Because I have the
opportunity to get out and they don’t?”

“
Exactly! They think if
they can’t leave, nobody can. The first passerby I saw was a woman
of about fifty, I guess. During her journey through the town she
had learned how to use and manipulate her power, and she got into
fights with the other residents.”

Malcolm laughed under his breath
remembering the woman’s struggle. He had taken the cigarette from
his mouth and was holding it before my face. I breathed it in
greedily, my lungs longing to smoke.

“
She destroyed some of
them; the others ran back into their houses. I suppose if she had
had time, she would have ruined their houses too, but she thought
better of it and disappeared into the light.”

“
She killed them? But how
could she kill them if they were already dead?” Elizabeth inquired.
I looked at her reddened cheeks. She bit her lips and for a second
I felt a powerful desire to taste them.

“
She couldn’t kill them,”
Malcolm detracted my attention away from her. “They will stay in
this town with their bodies split into pieces until their time
comes.”

“
Awful,” Elizabeth cried
out and her face contorted into disgust.

“
That’s not the worst
part. They will exist in agony, and they’ll feel those stray
beast-like dogs gnaw hungrily on their remains until their very
end.”

“
Stop, please,” she begged
covering her face with her hands in horror. I thought she was
sobbing silently, envisaging the gruesome picture Malcolm had just
painted.

I was about to ask Malcolm
why he had told Elizabeth such dire things, but I soon realized
that even this man, who had already helped me twice, was just as
bad, just as hideous and as manic as all the other residents. I
would never dream of retelling such a horrid story to a woman as
nice as Elizabeth. Who knew what I’d become if I stayed in
the
town
for as
long as Malcolm had.

“
When will this storm fade
away?” I asked him.

“
I don’t know. Time is
almost non-existent here. There are no days, no nights, I can’t
tell you anything for sure, you’ve just got to wait. You haven’t
acquired as much power as you could wander in the storm amongst the
soul-eaters.”

I wasn’t. Just a slight hook on me had
passed me out.

I put my hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder
and tried to soothe her. “Are you okay? You have to be strong
Elizabeth. We have a long way to go.” I tried to reassure her and
encourage her at the same time.

“
Yes, I’m okay,” she said
through her tears, but her face was still hidden. Wiping her eyes
and nose, she managed to give me an affectionate smile.

Malcolm broke into a sudden laugh.
Both Elizabeth and I stared at him.

“
What’s funny?” I asked
exasperated.

“
Nothing,” he laughed and
stood up. “You do have a long journey with her.” He turned his back
to me and slunk off to the far end of the café.

I didn’t know what he had meant, but I
would figure that out later, alone without Elizabeth around. I
reached for the pack of cigarettes he had left behind and lit
one.

Puffs of cigarette smoke escaped my
lungs and mingled with the air, clouding my view. Elizabeth began
to sway in front of me, partly concealed by the billowing clouds.
We had been silent for a while, her eyes remained fixed on the
table in front of her. I could tell she was trying to digest
everything that Malcolm had just told us.

While smoking Malcolm’s cigarette, I
tried to understand more about my past through the details that my
visions had given me.

I thought that the
town
might only recall
bad memories to torture me, to make me believe I was just a monster
deserving of this
town
and its hellish residents. But, on the other hand, what was I
doing in this afterlife if I had been a good person back in the
real world?

Every single one of us has some sort
of stain from the life we have lived; everyone has lived in the
wrong way at some point in their lives. People are selfish; they
torture others and do many other questionable things, so in other
words they sin.

A human’s past obviously
can’t be changed, but I could change the future. I still had a
chance to reach my body, regain life on Earth and start everything
anew–a new life with new aspirations for becoming a good man. But
first I had to get out of this
town
.

A rush of inhuman power proceeded
pumping through my veins, almost as if I could feel the blood
throbbing inside of me like after you had run half a mile non-stop
at great speed. Malcolm had been right; the power was continuing to
increase.