Breaking Barriers

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Breaking Barriers Page 2

by Bob Dattolo


  That doesn’t matter any longer, though. It all fades into nothing as I get tired of waiting and reach out for death, clasping the reaching hands and pulling, urging the claws into me. The claws that never come. Instead, I’m grasped tight in a bizarrely bony embrace that I can’t quite feel until the last pinprick of sight disappears under the rising tide filling my bin.

  Not even the final arrival of death can stop me from wondering why this feels more like home than where I spent 16 years of my life.

  Chapter 2

  What I thought was pain before is blown away by my new reality. My original pain is a firecracker compared to a volcano, a toy car compared to a dragster, a paper plane compared to the space shuttle.

  If pain became a person, this is pain’s bigger brother’s bully’s bully’s dad. An angry dad with a hate-on for the whole world and the means to end it on a whim.

  And he’s trying to end it right now, through me. Every nerve ending that I think I own or ever wanted to own is burning down in its own nuclear meltdown, tearing through my body on its way to get back on the ski lift to start the pain again.

  If I wasn’t dead, I’d scream. If I wasn’t dead, I’d find a gun and end it. Or a woodchipper. Or fire? Fire has to be less painful than this. It has to be.

  Plus, any of those things would stop the pain sooner than this.

  Unless this is hell? Did I die and go to hell because I left my parents and wouldn’t let them kill me? Am I Abraham’s son and I’m being punished for disobeying my parents and not letting them slaughter me as they did my brothers and sisters? Is God a vindictive bastard that way?

  Or is this because I wanted to kill myself and actually tried to do it?

  Or because a vampire killed me? Am I being punished because I couldn’t stop a monster far stronger than I’ll ever be from killing me? That seems pretty vindictive, too.

  Or is that vampire right? Is this not death, but rebirth? Am I being reborn as a vampire? If so…I don’t even know how to feel about that. My parents taught me my entire life that supernaturals are evil incarnate, and demons and vampires are at the top of the heap of evil. Then again, they were planning on murdering me, so do I really listen to them about things like this?

  Surely not everything they taught me is wrong?

  Or maybe it is? After all, they seem to have killed eight of their other kids and were on their way to making me the next one in line. Do you trust anyone that systematically kills their own children? That doesn’t seem like a great idea to me. After all, I trusted them my entire life and it just put me in line for the altar to be murdered at their hands.

  None of this stops the pain. Or alters it in any way. Unless having the pain somehow grow is altering it? If so, yeah, get me off of that list. Except I seem to be on it. First in line, as a matter of fact, and getting the benefit of being the only one stupid enough to be on the list to begin with.

  I get it all. All the pain. All the agony. Enough to make the world disappear for an unknown amount of time.

  I’m not even sure how long I was back, since the pain continued to sizzle through my body without stopping, but I eventually heard voices, although they came through sounding thick and strange.

  “Jesus! How many do you think are in there?”

  “No idea. Coroner and the detectives think it’s at least 30 if not possibly 45 or 50. They’ve gotten six out so far.”

  “All supes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who could have killed so many?”

  “No idea. I smell some of seemingly everything here, so no idea who it might have been.”

  “Damn…any idea why there’s this thing is filled with blood?”

  “No clue. Detective Niles thinks it might be part of a ritual, but he’s just guessing right now. We got the magical team coming in about five minutes, so they should be able to tell us.”

  The pain in my body overshadowed the muffled sounds around me in a sudden movement that took me by surprise and made my brain short circuit in a haze of whites and reds. This time I was able to jerk and scream, or at least try to, but nothing came out. Instead, the pain fizzled from an ell-encompassing thing, to one focused on specific points. Specific points that burned white hot, then some color even hotter, before something inside of me pushed me to swallow.

  The heated points on my body cooled as I inhaled and I felt something filling me. Filling and filling and pushing aside the pain as it quenched the acid-filled points of pure agony across my body.

  Points that I finally realized were the spots the vampire stabbed me and bit into my throat.

  That doesn’t even count whatever it is coursing down my throat and filling the burning chasm that is my stomach.

  What is this? Why is this happening?

  Muffled screams and yells surround me as I’m finally able to lurch and jerk my body, but I can’t see. My eyes are filled with red as I move to inhaling, somehow, filling my body with whatever it is that’s putting the fires out. The fires that I so desperately want put out.

  My body goes from blessed warmth to feeling a line of cold starting at my nose that proceeds down my entire body and then gets lower and lower as yelling around me continues and I’m finally able to get blessed air into my lungs in a massive gasp.

  The gasp is soon followed by a scream of pain as the line of cold proceeds to get lower on my body, exposing more of my skin to the bitter cold. My eyesight clears from red to bright white as scared looking men point things at me where I lay on the ground screaming. Why aren’t they helping me?

  The line of cold meets at my back and my entire body is exposed to the sub-arctic cold of the room and I expect to freeze solid, but it never happens. Instead, my screams turn to crying and tears as I curl up in my tiny bin, wondering what hell I’ve gone to to be alive again. “Please don’t hurt me again.” At least I think I say it. It’s so hard to tell when darkness swallows me once more.

  Snatches of craziness are the next thing that hit me. What do I mean by that? It’s like a stop-motion thing, or possibly seeing something through a strobe light, yet it’s all disconnected. Blinding lights, disconnected sounds, scents, people, faces, hands, walls, lights above me. It’s everything all together, yet nothing connected in any way that makes any sense at all. If I ever did drugs, I think it would be like this. Or, I guess. My parents never allowed drugs into the compound, so all I have to base it on is what they taught us or what I read in the books they allowed or the sites they let us visit online.

  Given what my parents wanted to do with me, maybe drugs aren’t like that? Tough crap, I guess, that’s all I have to base this on. Even attempting to talk was a non-starter. I must have tried two or three dozen times before I was able to make a sound. Of course, the first sound I made wasn’t a question. Or a moan. No, it was a scream. How do I know? Because my limited sight was flooded with people and guns and angry faces before the darkness rushed back in to take over.

  After that, the flashes of things slowed down until opening my eyes let me see a completely stable light above me. It was a stark white flat panel type light and didn’t really look familiar. Trying to speak didn’t do a whole lot for me other than make me grunt. My throat was dry beyond belief and it was hard to get anything out that resembled human communication.

  Someone appeared above me. He looked older, maybe 50 or so, and sported thinning silver hair and enough scruff to make me think he was either growing a beard or hadn’t been able to shave for a while. He stared down at me as I blinked slowly and tried to make sense of things.

  “Nurse? She’s awake.” He looked to the side, but I couldn’t quite turn my head to follow where he was looking. I couldn’t tell if I was too weak or restrained, so I gave up since I didn’t quite feel strong enough to do anything else. Plus, that feeling made me hope it was just weakness and not some contraption holding me still. I’d rather not know.

  A younger woman appeared on the opposite side from the guy and leaned in. She looked much nicer than the gu
y and smiled at me. “Hey, you with us again?”

  I managed a small nod, but couldn’t speak more than another grunt.

  “Would you like a small sip of water? I can give you a little water and then ice chips?”

  Another nod got me a tiny sip of water that flooded my mouth with cool deliciousness. It also awoke a thirst that made me feel like I could drink the ocean. All too soon, she pulled it away. “I think that’s all we can do for now. Would you like some ice chips?”

  “Yes, please.” I sounded human. Barely. My throat was raw and hurt, but not as much as the lingering pain in my body. I felt sore pretty much everywhere on my body except the top of my head.

  She popped a few small chips of ice into my mouth.

  “Can you excuse us for a few minutes?”

  She nodded and put the cup down. “Sure thing, Detective. Call me if she needs more ice, all right?”

  He smiled at her before facing me again. His smile still existed, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes any longer. He looked down at me long enough that I started to feel uncomfortable.

  “Why did you do it?”

  I’ll admit, that question confused me. More than almost anything I’ve experienced even in the visions, that was so completely unexpected that I didn’t know how to answer.

  “Uhh…what? She offered water and I was thirsty?”

  He grunted and nodded slowly. “You’re in a lot of trouble, you’d be better off being honest with me.”

  “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about?” The ice chips disappeared, and my throat felt raw again. “I woke up and she offered me water? Why would I be in trouble for that?”

  His growl made me more confused, as did his eyes bleeding to a deep amber. “Listen to me, you little bitch, why did you kill them?”

  His question floored me, but not as much as the realization that he’s a supernatural. He has to be. Maybe a shifter? The eye thing is supposed to be telltale for some of them.

  I pushed away from him, trying to get as far across the bed as possible. “No, stay away! Don’t hurt me!” My voice cracked again and again as it rose. At first, my arms and legs didn’t want to work right, but then they moved suddenly as something screamed with a metallic groan and then snapped. I pushed away from him, scrabbling until the bed tipped and voices rose where I couldn’t see them.

  I had to get away. He’s evil and he’ll take me to hell with him if he bites me!

  I shoved across the floor until I hit a wall and curled into a ball in the corner, pulling my arms up and covering my head. The words of the prayers my parents taught us to protect ourselves from evil spouted from my lips as I prayed to be protected from evil and delivered into the embrace of the supreme creator.

  I tried to ignore the voices of the evil around me and huddle there until the evil left me alone. My parents said this would work, so I hoped this was something they told me the truth about.

  One particular voice cut through my rounds of prayers. “What is she doing?”

  “I don’t know? I can barely understand her. Is it a spell of some sort?”

  The same nurse spoke. “No. She’s not gathering power of any type.”

  The new voice got closer. “It sounds like a prayer of some type? Something about staying pure against evil?”

  The detective snarled. “Why would she be praying about that? You saw what she did back there! She’s the evil one! Is she possessed?”

  “Detective…no, she’s not possessed. We’ve had her checked. We also know she’s not responsible for what happened back there. She entered the door, sat down against the wall near the bin she was found in, and then another scent interacted with her. There’s blood along the wall where she was seated and it’s all hers. We also found a box cutter there with her blood on it. We can’t tell who she met with, at least not definitively, but that’s the last scent on the box cutter. Plus, there’s no way she could have bitten herself. That is definitely a vampire bite on her neck, and she couldn’t have cut herself with the box cutter the way we see. She didn’t kill anyone back there.”

  The detective snorted. “You Feebs think you know everything, do you? I’ve been a wolf for almost 300 years, and I say she’s guilty!”

  The younger guy snorted. “That’s cute, Detective. I have shoes older than you are. Unless she coordinated everything with some other person, it’s not her. Then again, I know she didn’t coordinate anything at all. You see, we know who she is already. Until yesterday morning, she’s never been off of her parents’ property.”

  “What kind of crap are you trying to pull? Look at her! I can smell that she’s not human!”

  I prayed harder at that. What have they done to me?

  “Regardless of what you think you smell, Detective, she’s not some ancient magic user. She’s a 16-year-old girl that ran away from home. We have footage from various cameras showing her running. We can account for at least a third of her trip from her home to the building. If we account for how long we think it would have taken for someone to drain her and cut her up, then start killing, we only lose less than five minutes. She’s not responsible for what happened back there.”

  “Listen, Agent…”

  The younger guy’s voice hardened. “Detective, your efforts are no longer needed on this case with this victim. If you do not leave this room and this hospital within the next four minutes, I will have you arrested for impeding my investigation.”

  “You can’t…”

  “Three minutes 54 seconds.”

  Grumbling and cursing followed, but the man’s voice receded. As he left, my praying petered out. My throat couldn’t handle it and the evil was gone. It still left me huddled in the corner of the room, though.

  A light touch on my arm made me flinch. “Ms. Driscoll? You can come out now.”

  His use of my name made me twitch and look between my arms, to find the palest blue eyes looking back at me. They didn’t fade to amber and he didn’t have sharp teeth, so I felt better about moving my arms more. “Is he gone?” The Feeb, whatever that is, nodded. “How do you know my name?”

  I had to move my arms more as he moved around, and I realized he sat down on the ground. It took me almost a minute to realize he was holding out a bottle of water to me. It was like a lifeline, so I snatched it and began drinking greedily, feeling it infuse every cell on the way down to my stomach. I started crying halfway through at how good it felt. Weirdly enough, the pain in my body began receding.

  “Fascinating.” His voice was soft, but it made me stop and look at him.

  “What?”

  He motioned back to the bottle. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Please continue.”

  All too soon, the water was gone. Even though I needed more, I felt so much better that I almost didn’t want to ask for more. Almost. “Can I have more water?”

  He waved to the nurse that was hovering behind him. “Can I get another bottle? Maybe two?”

  She handed him two bottles. “You sure about this?”

  “I am.”

  He handed me one, and I began drinking again, closing my eyes and relishing the experience as I tugged at the constricting things on my arm, tearing them away and throwing them to the side. I switched hands on the bottle and did the same to the other arm, then to my legs while finishing the bottle. I barely had my eyes open for two seconds before he handed me the next one. That one I started drinking just as quickly, keeping my eyes open through the entire thing. When I was done, I felt like a pig, but human again.

  Human enough to realize I was in a hospital and in a hospital gown that left my legs bare and came scandalously close to exposing myself to him. I yanked my legs up and covered myself. “Please don’t look at me!” I had nowhere to hide, so I had to resort to begging.

  My reaction confused him, causing him to turn to the nurse. “What am I missing?”

  She shrugged. “She’s covering her legs?”

  He turned back. “Ms. Driscoll? Are you hiding your legs fro
m me?”

  I nodded. “Please don’t look at me! Being naked is a sin!”

  He turned away and grabbed a blanket from the bed before handing it to me while not looking. “Will this work?”

  I snatched it and covered myself. “Thank you. I…I have to do penance for being seen, but this helps for now.”

  The nurse was shocked. “Uhh, what?”

  “Being naked is a sin. I can’t let people see me without paying penance to earn my way back to heaven. I don’t know how many people saw me before this, so I’m not even sure if I can earn my way back, but I have to try.”

  The young guy nodded. “I see…what does this penance entail?”

  I shrugged and played with the hem of the blanket. “Uhh, prayers, fasting, and a flogger. Which I don’t have anymore…so I have to make one, I guess. I’m not sure how to make up for not knowing how many people saw me, though.”

  The nurse squatted next to the Feeb. “I’m not sure how you were raised, but there’s a lot in what you said that’s wrong.”

  “In what way? Do I have to fast longer or something? My parents always had strict rules.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m not sure what to do with this.”

  He touched her arm. “It’s okay. I think I have an idea. Can you leave us for now?”

  She nodded and left the room, leaving the two of us together.

  “Ms. Driscoll, I’m somewhat at a loss for what to say to you right now. While I believe you’re not responsible for what happened, you’re directly involved. I’m just not sure how. Or why. Or…how.”

  “You said that twice.”

  His smile seemed heartfelt. “I did, but it’s warranted. We have two things to talk about, but I’ll hit the most recent topic first.” He ran a hand through his messy hair. “To start, being naked isn’t a sin. Especially in front of medical professionals. But even outside of that? Not a sin.”

  “But my parents said I’ll go to hell!”

 

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