Seasons of Heaven (4 page)

James wanted far away from them. He found out then that the human body…his body to be precise was more resilient than he’d given it credit for….He once again began to run through the empty corridors of the hospital, looking for a place to hide. He ducked into one of the patient rooms. It was empty, of course. The whole place was empty except for James and the appalling creatures that stalked him.

He ran between the two empty beds and once he was in between them and the wall, he pulled them together, making himself a barricade. James knew that creatures that could come and go from nowhere wouldn’t be stopped by such a puny obstacle, but his body was so heavy from the fear and fatigue that he just couldn’t go on any further. It almost felt as if the evil in the room was suffocating all of his energy. His hands were shaking and he could feel the sweat beading along his upper lip. His breaths were coming in ragged gasps as the things advanced on him, waving their slimy looking tentacles in the air.

James was sure this was the end for him. He was trying not to breathe at all now that they were so close. It felt like the air in the room was filled with their wickedness and James was afraid of breathing it in. While he contemplated what they may do to him, he found himself wishing that he’d lived a better life. What if he didn’t get to go and be with Sarah and Thomas? As he pondered his mistakes in life, the creatures disappeared into the night once again as fast as they had appeared earlier. James looked around the room, his thoughts were muddled and he was second-guessing himself. It was as if the things had never been there at all. Had he imagined the whole thing? That was when there was another blinding flash of light and James woke up.

CHAPTER THREE

“BANISHED”

NEW YORK CITY, HOSPITAL

It took James a few seconds to get his bearings back and remember where he was. He’d somehow made it back to his office and he must have fallen asleep at his desk. He’d had the nightmare….again. James stood up quickly, too quickly. The blood rushed from his head to his feet and he nearly fell over. He had to reach out for the desk and steady himself as he walked around it. He wanted to go home.

He began moving things around on the top of his desk, looking for his keys. He all at once felt like he needed to get out of this place, it was driving him crazy and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. His hands shook as he moved things around on his neatly organized desk only to find that it didn’t hold any keys or any other surprises. He was getting more frustrated with each passing minute. He felt an urgency to escape from this place…to be outside in the cool, wet night air where he could finally breathe.

Behind him, the rain was pelting like bullets against the panes of the large window that looked out over the hospital grounds. A bolt of lightning cut across the dark sky and caused it to light up as if someone had thrown on a switch. James didn’t notice any of this. All he was focused on was finding his keys. They had to be here somewhere. He needed to get out of this place.

He went around behind the big desk and sat down in the over-sized leather office chair and began to go through the desk drawers. He’d long ago lost the intense pride that he’d had in the diplomas, certificates and commendations that hung on the wall behind him now. He’d been a doctor for so many years and the certificates hung behind him on the wall for so long, he barely noticed them any longer. They didn’t mean the same thing to him that they used to. He no longer took the same pride in them, or in himself.

James had lived a charmed life for a while. He had studied first in France at the Medicine school of Paris before immigrating to the U.S. to study Cardio-vascular disorders. He had been so young then, and so full of hope. He’d been valedictorian of his class and constantly looking for new ways to nurture his desire to help his fellow man. He wanted to give back some of what he felt like he’d been blessed with right up until the time when he began to lose everything that mattered to him in his own life.

After going through each desk drawer twice and still not finding the keys, he slumped back down into the chair in defeat. His eyes landed on the pictures of his wife Sarah and his son Thomas displayed in wooden frames atop his desk. Sarah smiled out at him with her green eyes twinkling and her light auburn hair shining in the sun of the beach she had been standing on when the picture was taken. She had such an incredible aura, a charm about her that almost everyone who met her found irresistible.

The picture next to it was one of James with their boy Thomas in his arms. Thomas was such a little cherub. He had the biggest smile that James had ever seen, and the light spattering of freckles across his nose coupled with the always disheveled mop of brown hair made him look like a little rascal. He had his moments as all little boys do, but for the most part he was a great kid and there wasn’t a single day that went by when James didn’t miss him.

   James suddenly went from defeated to angry. In one swift motion he swept all of the documents off his desk. As they flew across the room, some of them hitting the wall and others crashing to the floor, James once again switched from angry to beaten down. His emotions were all over the place, he was used to it but at a loss for how to control it. He leaned forward on the desk and put his head in his hands. Pulling at his hair with his fingers, his exhausted and tormented mind traveled back to the earlier operation.

It was such a disaster….How could it have gone so wrong?

He felt the hot burn of tears filling his eyes. He blinked them back and willed himself not to think about it now. There would be inquiries over it and meetings and question after question that he’d probably not be able to answer. He just didn’t know how it had all gone so badly…thinking about it now was pointless. He pulled his head up out of his hands and looked at the phone lying on his desk. His hand trembled as he reached for it. The tears had escaped and were streaming down his cheeks as he put the phone to his ear and said,

“Hello? Honey…it’s me.”

Sarah’s sweet voice floated through the phone. James could hear it, the same as he could his own and just the sound of it sent a warm glow surging through him.

“Hello? James? Why are you crying, what’s the matter? You know you have to be strong, he is listening to us and he’s listening to you! Why are you only calling me now? I was worried sick!”

“I feel lost, Sarah. I don’t know where to turn. Everything has changed since he…” he had to stop for a second; his body was wracked with sobs. He fought through it, drawing on the strength that Sarah gave him and then he said, “Since both of you left. I wanted to call you earlier, but I was with a patient. I lost her, Sarah. It was such a disaster. She died, Sarah. Her lifeless body was just there on the table….” he had to stop again; the sobs were causing him to gulp for breath. He was such a mess.

“Don’t worry, honey, you know that what we lose is never lost forever. I’ll always be here for you, even though I had to go away.”

James reached into the bottom drawer of his desk. Pulling out a dusty glass and a bottle of Bourbon, he poured himself a drink. Downing it like a shot he said,

“I know. I’m trying to remember….It’s hard Sarah.”

“You’re drinking again?” she asked, obviously disappointed.

“Don’t worry, I'm ok...” he lied.

“When is your flight?” she asked him, changing the subject.

“In a few hours, I believe, I’ll be home around eight tonight!”

“Have a safe trip,” she told him before he hung up the phone.

He sat there staring at it, his mind was reeling still. He let it go back to the first time he’d gotten really drunk….

He started a fight in a bar. In his defense, it was because someone had said something horrible to him, something that no parent should ever have to hear. It was after Thomas had gone missing and the entire town believed he was responsible for it…they thought he had killed his own son. After Thomas disappeared he’d done what any good, distraught father would have done; he’d gone to the police. The police had done a cursory investigation and then turned their sights on the boy’s parents. The loss of a child was a devastating thing, something that no parent is built to endure, but to be blamed for that loss was indescribable. He had turned to the alcohol to numb his pain and when that idiot had opened his mouth that night, James hadn’t been able to control himself. The guy ended up with a split lip and a bump on the back of his head where he’d fallen back into the bar and James ended up spending a night in jail. He would have spent more nights there, many more if they had convicted him of murdering his own son. That may have happened had it not been for the inspector in charge of the judicial inquiry. The man saved him that fate by refusing to draw any hasty conclusions as the rest of the police force and the town had done.

James was suddenly shaken back to reality by the high pitched wail of the rain. It sounded like a siren, using her beautiful voice to lure a sailor to his doom. He got up from the chair and reached for his jacket just as another jagged bolt of lightning tore through the sky, effectively ripping it in half. He pulled the jacket off the hook it hung on and the car keys fell out of the pocket. He put on the jacket, picked up the keys and at last headed for the exit.

James made his way to the exit door taking note that the hospital seemed to be operating normally, unlike the shambles it had been in his dream. He shivered when he remembered his nightmares and did his best to tuck that memory away in the far recesses of his brain. He hit the door at the end of the hall and began to descend the stairs; his long legs took them four at a time. When he reached the bottom floor and began to head towards the outer doors he caught sight of a small red tricycle slowly inching towards him. He stopped, riveted by the sight. It continued its gentle forward motion until it was a few feet in front of him and then it stopped. James moved towards it as if in a trance. It was Thomas’s tricycle…it had belonged to his son…His chest suddenly felt heavy again and he reached out and put his hand on the handle bars. All at once there was another blinding flash and James was back in his home. The one he had shared with Thomas and Sarah.

He was standing in the living room. Just a short time ago this room, the whole house had been filled with Sarah’s decorating charms and the happy sounds of a child playing. It was a place that James craved when he was away and hesitated to leave when he was home. Now, it was nothing but a constant reminder of all that he’d lost. Everything was empty, packed in boxes and waiting out near the fireplace to be picked up by the movers. Even before the things had been packed away, it had been empty. Without Sarah and Thomas it was like a wooden and stucco shell.

James could hear the lonely patter of the rain on the shingle roof. He turned away from the agony of the void that used to be his family’s home and went out on the front porch. The water from the rain was running swiftly down the gutter making a soft metallic sound. It was the only sound on the empty street. There wasn’t even a single car in sight.

James sat down and opened his bottle of bourbon and lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag off the cigarette and a drink of the bourbon straight from the bottle. He sat the bottle down and the corner of his eye caught sight of a dark shape on the left side of the courtyard. James stood up and leaving the shelter of the porch he stepped down the two steps into the pouring rain. He didn’t have to extinguish his cigarette; the rain took care of that for him. Tossing it aside, he made his way deeper into the garden. He couldn’t see anything except the plants and flowers that Sarah had so lovingly cared for now hanging limply from their bushes, trees or stalks. He made his way to the fence where he had seen the shape disappear, and he jumped over it. He could see the strange shape once again. The back of the house faced a wooded area and James followed the shape into the depths of the cold, dark space enclosed by large natural umbrellas made of thick tree branches and leaves. As he reached out to steady himself against one of the big trees, he could feel carvings underneath his palm. He pulled his hand away, and looked at the carving. It was a bunch of small birds that had to have been carved with a tiny little knife. He looked closer and saw that they were ortolans. Ortolans, in the past had been a delicacy in European countries, most especially in France.

James flashed back from his memories. He was once again in the hospital lobby. The tricycle was gone. With another tortured sigh, he continued out the main exit of the hospital. It was dark outside and everything was drenched from the rain. He slogged through the deep puddles left from the down pour. The sirens coming and going from the hospital were like background music to his life by now…he hardly heard them anymore. He made his way to the black SUV he drove, it was sitting alone in the lot. James stopped and looked at it. Alone was the story of his life since he’d lost Thomas and Sarah. He wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings and he suddenly felt himself bumped in the shoulder. He turned and saw what he could only describe as a creepy looking man, passing in the other direction. James was still on edge and he hadn’t realized it until now, but he was spoiling for a fight.

“Hey!” he yelled after the man, “Can’t you be careful and watch where you’re going?”

The man just made a strange sound and then giggled. That only made James more annoyed.

“Hey jerk! Don’t you have any manners?”